The Penguin Jazz Guide (105 page)

& See also
The Köln Concert
(1975; p. 418),
Standards: Volume 1
(1983; p. 474),
Always Let Me Go
(2001; p. 663)

MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA
^&

Formed 1971

Group

The Inner Mounting Flame

Columbia Legacy 65523

John McLaughlin (g); Jan Hammer (p, Moog); Jerry Goodman (vn); Rick Laird (b); Billy Cobham (d). August 1971.

Broadcaster and DJ Peter Easton remembers:
‘They came to Glasgow once: arpeggiated gently for five minutes, then freaked out for half an hour, then played a few more arpeggios, and went home.’

The Mahavishnu Orchestra combined sophisticated time-signatures and chord structures with drum and post-Hendrix guitar riffs of surpassing heaviness. Some elements of the Mahavishnu package – not least the leader’s cheesecloth philosophy and huge doubleneck guitars – dated rather quickly, but the Orchestra’s hippy reputation has given way to renewed respect among musicians, and there are at present a number of Mahavishnu repertory ‘projects’ in existence, the best of them curated and led by percussionist Gregg Bendian.

The formula was slightly more thoughtful than arpeggio–freakout–arpeggio. Over ambiguous harmonies and often complex time-signatures, McLaughlin produced chains of blistering high notes on both his six- and twelve-stringed guitars. He had worked in between with Miles Davis and as part of the Tony Williams Lifetime, and his sound had evolved and darkened since the making of
Extrapolation
just over two years previously. The two new additional elements were Jan Hammer’s remarkably personalized and expressive Moog lines and Billy Cobham’s whirlwind drumming. Rick Laird, later a distinguished photographer, maintained a steady, algebraic beat, while Jerry Goodman, despite coming from undistinguished prog-rock group Flock, showed no difficulty playing violin in 13/8.

The first Mahavishnu album was one of the essential fusion records. It’s more varied than one remembers, with the soft lyricism of ‘A Lotus On Irish Streams’ set against the heavy blues sarcasm of ‘You Know, You Know’. Ironically, just as he was pushing the electric guitar solo to new heights of amplification and creative abandon, McLaughlin was also working against the dominance of electricity and setting a new standard for acoustic performance, something he continued to develop on the second Mahavishnu record,
Birds Of Fire.
Personal and artistic differences blocked progress on a third studio album. There was conflict regarding composition credits in what was supposed to be a co-operative band. In the event, Columbia released the live Central Park recording
Between Nothingness And Eternity
. Word of bootleg copies of the studio session circulated for some time, but then studio producer Bob Belden discovered a pair of quarter-inch tapes containing the material. The ‘lost’ session includes Hammer’s ‘Sister Andrea’ – also on the live record – but also two short tunes by Rick Laird (‘Steppings Tones’) and Jerry Goodman (‘I Wonder’), though it seems that Billy Cobham held back material for his own projects.

Later incarnations of the group were on a more obviously orchestral scale. They are probably undervalued, but none ever reached the intensity and sheer beauty of the first record.

& See also
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, Extrapolation
(1969; p. 359)

ORNETTE COLEMAN
^&

Born Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman, 9 March 1930, Fort Worth, Texas

Alto and tenor saxophones, trumpet, violin

The Complete Science Fiction Sessions

Columbia/Legacy 63569 2CD

Coleman; Bobby Bradford, Carmon Fornarotto, Gerard Schwarz (t); Don Cherry (pkt-t); Dewey Redman (ts, musette); Cedar Walton (p); Jim Hall (g); Charlie Haden (b); Ed Blackwell (d); Billy Higgins (tymp); Webster Armstrong, David Henderson, Asha Puthli (v). September–October 1971, September 1972.

Ornette Coleman said (1983):
‘With the new technologies, perhaps we are ready to escape from need and pain, and all that worldly stuff. “Work” seems increasingly irrelevant, and so does the idea of a job. What am I doing? It isn’t work, whatever else it is, and it isn’t play-as-the-opposite-of-work either.’

Is this Ornette’s most important record since the Atlantics? The release version was muddled and patchy, but now that all the material is in the public domain, its intentions and
contours are more plainly audible. It’s a work of unbelievable intensity, as if Ornette were trying to reach escape velocity with his music and lift it once and for all above the quotidian standards of ‘jazz’. ‘Street Woman’ and ‘Civilization Day’ mark the reunion of the classic quartet, but taken on a step. ‘Rock The Clock’ has Redman on musette, and Haden’s bass pushed through a wah-wah pedal, stirring up an unwanted comparison with Miles Davis’s electric jams; it’s not an entirely absurd thought, and it may be that for a moment their philosophies unwillingly converged, but it’s fleeting. ‘What Reason Could I Give’ and ‘Science Fiction’ feature vocalist Asha Puthli, world-pop of the sort one might expect if Stockhausen were the DJ. The best tracks, though, are ‘Law Years’ and ‘The Jungle Is A Skyscraper’, with Redman and Bradford added to the quartet. These are fast, intense lines, with something of the full-on disorder of
Free Jazz
reaching out towards the ‘harmolodic’ language of
Dancing In Your Head
, the latter a record that brought Coleman to the attention of a hip younger audience (one not much interested in jazz and attracted by the guitars) but decidedly inferior to his overlooked masterpiece. There are moments of nonsense, inevitably. David Henderson’s narration doesn’t make much sense in context and the originally rejected ‘Good Girl Blues’ is a bit daft. It may be of use to ask friends who played guitar on the
Science Fiction
session. Not many of them will jump at Jim Hall, unless they knew already. But with Ornette, the ‘unlikely’ partnerships – and many more were to follow – stack up so tall they start to look like normal practice for this most welcoming of musicians.

& See also
The Shape Of Jazz To Come
(1959, 1960; p. 245),
At The Golden Circle, Stockholm
(1965; p. 324),
Colors
(1996; p. 605)

REVOLUTIONARY ENSEMBLE
^&

Formed 1971

Group

Revolutionary Ensemble

ESP 3000

Leroy Jenkins (vn, vla); Sirone (b); Jerome Cooper (d, p). 1971.

Leroy Jenkins said (1991):
‘Maybe we should have called ourselves the Evolutionary Trio. That might have gone down better.’

It was Sunny Murray who introduced violinist Leroy Jenkins to bassist Sirone. They immediately discovered large areas of musical and political interest in common and formed a trio, originally with drummer Frank Clayton. Jenkins had already been dabbling in new musical systems, developing a personal language compounded of blues, jazz and classical music. Sirone had considerable experience already on the avant-garde scene and Jerome Cooper, who replaced Clayton before the first recording, was a younger Chicagoan experimenter.

The eponymous first record is a two-part improvisation called, significantly, ‘Vietnam’. The music is harsh and demanding, but Jenkins’s interest in developing improvisations from small cells or motives is immediately evident, as is Sirone’s ability to translate such ideas into a lower register and slower delivery, and Cooper’s willingness to add an abstract orchestral quality to the music as well as line and metre. It remains a powerful performance, subtler than its rather two-dimensional register suggests.

Of the trio’s other records, little survives except jealously guarded collectors’ copies. There is a story that a contract with A&M was cancelled when Quincy Jones played label founder Herb Alpert a selection from
The People’s Republic
, sparking a violent reaction. Elsewhere, bad pressings and no distribution dented the group’s visibility seriously. There was a revival in 2003, but while the fire was undimmed, the world seemed to have moved on …

& See also
LEROY JENKINS, Solo
(1992; p. 567)

JOHN SURMAN
^&

Born 30 August 1944, Tavistock, Devon, England

Baritone and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet, keyboards

Tales Of The Algonquin

Dutton Vocalion 8410

Surman; Harry Beckett, Martin Drover, Kenny Wheeler (t, flhn); Danny Almark, Malcolm Griffiths, Ed Harvey (tb); Mike Osborne (as, cl); Alan Skidmore (ts, af); Stan Sulzmann (as, ss, f); John Warren (b, f); John Taylor (p); Harry Miller, Barre Phillips (b); Alan Jackson, Stu Martin (d). 1971.

John Surman says:
‘Typically, the albums that have the most impact are recorded in a hurry and often by accident.
Tales
happened because I needed one album to fulfil my quota for Decca. I asked John Warren if he felt like writing something new. The Trio were in the UK to record. A studio was booked, musicians found and … bingo.’

John Surman first came to notice in Mike Westbrook’s group, and it was a direct result of his performances on the Westbrook albums
Celebration
and
Marching Song
that persuaded producer Peter Eden to record him for Deram. The debut makes unexpected listening, being largely devoted to calypso jazz in the Sonny Rollins mode, played accurately and with some exuberance but hardly representative of Surman’s great strengths.

At the same time he was developing a more individual style in a trio with Dave Holland and Alan Jackson, and the second half of the debut record was devoted to large-scale arrangements of trio material. Unfortunately that is very much the impression the album creates. The ensembles sound padded-out rather than organic, perhaps too consciously influenced by Coltrane’s
Africa/Brass. How Many Clouds Can You See?
marked a step forward. It also saw a first collaboration with Canadian composer John Warren; ‘Premonition’ is a powerful trade-off between free jazz and more classically orientated structures and was an important pointer to what was to come later. The remainder of the record is small group-pieces, reflecting the work Surman was doing with The Trio.

Surman’s time with Deram ended with his very best album to date, a full-scale collaboration with Warren.
Tales Of The Algonquin
is a masterpiece, conceived on a grand scale, meticulously executed and marked by superb soloing from Surman, Skidmore and the always wonderful Osborne. The set opens with four unrelated themes by Warren. Surman produces a boiling soprano solo on the uptempo ‘With Terry’s Help’, which exploits double-time and displaced harmonies. ‘The Dandelion’ is perhaps the standout track of the album, though it is Mike Osborne’s plaintive, keening solo which gives it its power. By contrast, the connected pieces which give the album its title are slightly too fey and impressionistic. ‘Shingebis And The North Wind’ is adventurous even by the standards of those blithely experimental days. Again Surman takes a back seat, this time to trumpeter Harry Beckett, who solos with an elemental sadness. Surman sounds most sure-footed in the immediate company of his Trio colleagues Phillips and Martin and produces his own most effective playing with them on ‘The Adventures Of Manabush’.
Tales
is a record that has enjoyed almost legendary status among British jazz fans.

& See also
A Biography Of The Rev. Absalom Dawe
(1994; p. 585);
SOS, SOS
(1975; p. 419)

NORMA WINSTONE

Born 23 September 1941, London

Voice

Edge Of Time

Disconforme 148

Winstone; Henry Lowther, Kenny Wheeler (t, flhn); Malcolm Griffiths, Chris Pyne, Paul Rutherford (tb); Mike Osborne (as, cl); Alan Skidmore (ts); Art Themen (bs); John Taylor (p); Gary Boyle (g); Chris Laurence (b); Tony Levin (d). 1971.

Norma Winstone says:
‘I made the most of it by trying to include all my friends! So, sometimes 12 musicians, sometime three (as with John Taylor and Art Themen on “Songs For A Child”: the beginning of a penchant for the trio?). I had a feeling that it would be a “one-off” as they would eventually realize their mistake. I turned out to be right about this. Decca pulled out of the recording of new jazz talent pretty soon after!’

Norma’s coming out as a singer was supporting Roland Kirk at Ronnie Scott’s and it was there, a short time after, that she won both the British and World section in a 1971
Melody Maker
jazz poll. The other side-benefit was that Decca signed off for an album, perhaps cashing in on the fact that Norma had already recorded with Michael Garrick for their subsidiary Argo. Her debut as leader is still warmly admired, even if she did subsequently go on to pioneer a new kind of chamber-jazz as Azimuth with former husband John Taylor and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, and she has continued to balance lyric singing with free-form vocalizing in a number of contexts. She has a unique voice, strong but ethereal, floating but always exact and on pitch; it sits just as well in a horn section (as on Mike Westbrook’s
Metropolis
) as in front of a standards orchestra.