The Penguin Jazz Guide (110 page)

& See also
Maiden Voyage
(1965; p. 317)

OREGON

Formed 1970

Group

Music Of Another Present Era

Universe 42

Ralph Towner (g, 12-string g, p, syn, c, mel, frhn); Paul McCandless (ob, eng hn, ss, bcl, tin f, musette); Glen Moore (b, cl, vla, p, f); Collin Walcott (sitar, tabla, dulc, cl, v). 1973.

Elvin Jones, who recorded
Together
with the group in 1977, said (1991):
‘We spoke the same language. I didn’t have any trouble with their music, and John Coltrane would have appreciated what they were doing.’

An offshoot of the Paul Winter Consort, Oregon became a hugely successful project that makes most ‘crossover’ music seem bland and unthoughtful. The group was formed at a point of low commercial ebb for jazz and became a species of Modern Jazz Quartet for the ’70s, drawing on ‘world’ and classical elements along the way. The group’s longevity was
unexpected and the only interruption in its stately progress was the tragic death of Collin Walcott in a road accident in 1984, though he was later replaced in the line-up by Trilok Gurtu and, more permanently, Mark Walker.

The early records were largely, but not exclusively, devoted to Towner compositions and were characterized by delicate interplay between his 12-string guitar and Paul McCandless’s equally ‘classical’ oboe. The debut is still rather tentative, but delicately lyrical. The music on
Music Of Another Present Era
and
Distant Hills
was widely perceived as ethereal and impressionistic, and there was a tendency (perhaps encouraged by intermittent sound-balance on the original vinyl releases) to underestimate the significance of Glen Moore’s firm bass-lines (see ‘Spring Is Really Coming’ on
Present Era
) or the forcefulness of Collin Walcott’s tablas. The music combined evocative thematic writing (‘Aurora’ on
Present Era
, re-recorded on
North West Passage
; the classic ‘Silence Of A Candle’ and McCandless’s ‘The Swan’ on
Distant Hills
) with abstract, collectively improvised pieces (like the ‘Mi Chirita Suite’ on
Distant Hills
; a neglected aspect of the band’s career) and forcefully rhythmic tunes like ‘Sail’ (
Present Era
) which should have confounded a lingering belief that the band were too professorial to rock.

SPONTANEOUS MUSIC ENSEMBLE

Formed 1967

Group

Quintessence

Emanem 4217 2CD

Evan Parker, Trevor Watts (ss); Derek Bailey (g); Kent Carter (clo, b); John Stevens (perc, v). October 1973, February 1974.

Saxophonist (and future SME member) John Butcher says:
‘Listening to the quintet feels like assuming five separate brains and instincts simultaneously. The music’s that clear, but, like going beyond Newton’s two-body problem, it’s wonderfully too mysterious to solve.’

Though both emerged out of modern jazz, SME took a different trajectory through freedom than that of AMM, which emerged around the same time on the British scene. At the heart of both groups were drummers who in their contrasting ways retained some measure of jazz rhythm in their work. Initially at least, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, which emerged out of London’s Little Theatre Club, retained a more obviously jazz-associated instrumentation. Like AMM founder Eddie Prévost, drummer John Stevens had a strong metrical sense, honed in various Royal Air Force bands, and an ability to establish a deep pulse even when there was no strict count. In addition, his close collaborator, saxophonist Trevor Watts, was a natural melodist, and in later years, following a split with Stevens, moved more in that direction.

Stevens was a volatile philosopher of improvisation who enjoined a principle of careful but intuitive listening in the group context, an aural equivalent of ‘peripheral vision’. Under his tutelage, the group evolved steadily and by the time of Stevens’s premature death in 1994 was entirely
sui generis
. The key collaborator, arguably, was guitarist Roger Smith, but the ability of saxophonist John Butcher to take his instrument far beyond any residual association with jazz was also an important element.

That, though, was two decades in the future. SME’s first major statement had been
Karyobin
in 1968, now recognized as a classic of free music but perhaps still somewhat in the orbit of American free jazz and reflecting the divergent interests of its personnel, which included, in addition to Evan Parker and Derek Bailey, such distinctive musical imaginations as trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, trombonist Paul Rutherford and bassist Dave Holland.

Remarkable as
Karyobin
is, it now sounds – in that old critical cliché – like a ‘transitional’
work. In so far as any record can capture a group as protean and evolutionary as SME,
Quintessence
is the key text, triple-distilled, rarefied and raw. The group’s first sustained incarnation had been as the duo of Stevens and Parker. For much of 1973, Stevens and Watts had returned to this demanding format, but following a course of intense musical austerity. The earliest recordings here are from a Little Theatre Club performance taped on 11 October 1973. Saxophone and drums inhabit a space as unassociative and stark as a Samuel Beckett staging, but with the same blunt humanity and wit the playwright brought even to the most extreme and uninflected situation. The more important piece of the pair is ‘Daa-oom’, ostensibly inspired by Albert Ayler and African pygmy music, and featuring Stevens’s scarifying singing.

The piece is significant because it shows to what extent Stevens liked at this time, as again later, to work with a loose repertory of ideas and procedures, like ‘Flower’, which occupied much of their attention at this time. A week after the Little Theatre Club date, the duo was joined by bassist/cellist Kent Carter, who was touring Britain with Steve Lacy’s group. ‘Da-oom’ is performed again, in trio format, with Carter showing a remarkable intuition for the music and for the tensely elided relationship that bore between Stevens and Watts.

He was present again in February 1974 for a quintet performance at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. With virtually no preparation, the group, which had no prior history, created a series of improvisations that have no parallel even in Martin Davidson’s extensive Emanem archive. Two versions of ‘Rambunctious’ find the group thinking and playing at warp speed. The level of interplay borders on the uncanny. Stevens’s awareness of his colleagues is instinctive rather than studied. He responds to them almost as someone might while doing something else – reading, cooking – during conversation, not rudely or detachedly, but simply because he can divide his attention. His playing is detailed but never definitive, assertive but never dogmatic, and represents a constant interrogation of the musical situation. Many recordings of SME survive, from before and after this time. All have something to recommend them, but none has quite the presence or has such an air of importance as this one, not as a ‘historical document’ but as a musical moment that replicates its searching energy and air of continual surprise with every fresh hearing.

JOE PASS

Born Joseph Anthony Jacobi Passalaqua, 13 January 1929, New Brunswick, New Jersey; 23 May 1994, Los Angeles, California

Guitar

Virtuoso

Pablo 2310-708

Pass (g solo). November 1973.

Joe Pass said (1986):
‘It was Norman Granz who suggested I might play a solo concert. I was very nervous. Playing fast tunes without a group was very alien to me, but guitarists are used to playing alone at home and it was just a matter of taking confidence from that.’

Already playing pro in high school, Pass toured with Charlie Barnet before naval service, then grappled with a drug problem. Cleaning up in the early ’60s, he worked with George Shearing and others and became internationally known after signing with Norman Granz’s Pablo operation. Revered by other players for a consummate technique, he helped restore a ‘traditional’ modernism, after rock nullified the open-tone electric sound.

His long series of albums for Pablo helped Pass become both a major concert attraction and a benchmark player for jazz guitar. Pass smooths away the nervousness of bop yet
counters the plain talk of swing with a complexity that remains completely accessible. An improvisation on a standard may range far and wide, but there’s no sense of him going into territory which he doesn’t already know well. There’s nothing hidden in his music, everything is absolutely on display, and he cherishes good tunes without sanctifying them. His tone isn’t distinctive but it is reliably mellifluous, and he can make every note in a melody shine. Compared with Tal Farlow or Jimmy Raney, Pass took few risks and set himself fewer genuine challenges, but any guitarist will recognize a performer who has a total command over the instrument.

Pass’s solo records are almost a category by themselves, and their importance in re-establishing the eminence of straight-ahead jazz guitar now seems clear. At a time when traditional jazz guitar-playing was being sidelined by the gradual onset of fusion, Joe’s solo work reaffirmed the virtues of the unadorned electric guitar, and the subtleties and harmonic shrewdness of his playing are like a long drink of water after much of the overheated guitar-playing of the ’70s and ’80s. There was a series of
Virtuoso
albums – for once, the designation seems justified – but the first release (
Virtuoso #4
is actually an earlier recording) is definitely the best. Back to back versions of ‘How High The Moon’ and ‘Cherokee’ are breathtaking.

WEATHER REPORT
^&

Formed 1970; disbanded 1985

Group

Mysterious Traveller

Sony 507657-2

Joe Zawinul (ky); Wayne Shorter (ts, ss); Alphonso Johnson, Miroslav Vitous (b); Ismael Wilburn (d); Dom Um Romão (perc); additional voices. 1973, February–May 1974.

Joe Zawinul said (1995):
‘Everything in Weather Report was improvised. Everything. It wasn’t just themes and solos. It was all solos and the themes came out of that.’

Weather Report is one of the great jazz groups of its time. ‘Birdland’ on
Heavy Weather
is one of only a tiny handful of contemporary jazz tunes that everyone seems to have heard. Though its composer, Joe Zawinul, wouldn’t suffer it to be played in later years, it encapsulates perfectly the formula that made the group so successful: solid part-writing from Zawinul, Wayne Shorter’s enigmatic saxophone sound, a free-floating personnel round the Zawinul–Shorter axis and great product marketing (Weather Report covers were consistently eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing).

The first two albums, the eponymous one and
I Sing The Body Electric
, had a faintly mysterious, otherworldly quality that certainly didn’t reflect the group’s live presence at the time, but probably did reflect the compositional influence and personality of Wayne Shorter. After
Sweetnighter
in 1972, the group was much more obviously dominated by Zawinul’s very individual sense of rhythm – neither swinging, nor ‘African’, but something of his own – and by a funky quality which in many respects was more successfully achieved than former boss Miles Davis’s explorations in the same direction. ‘Boogie Woogie Waltz’ was the band’s most accessible track before ‘Birdland’ came along, and with ‘125th Street Congress’ gave the impression of a group embarked on an endless jam. ‘Will’ was effectively Miroslav Vitous’s farewell to the group, though he does have a brief presence on
Mysterious Traveller
, standing in for new bassist Alphonso Johnson, and as co-composer of ‘American Tango’.

This is still perhaps the most sheerly beautiful of the Weather Report records, from the
wild joy of ‘Nubian Sundance’ with its synth-enhanced crowd noises, to the cool beauty of ‘Cucumber Slumber’, to the quietness of ‘Blackthorn Rose’, a lyrical duet that may represent a point of maximum closeness between the group’s founders at the very moment when Zawinul seemed set to take over; Shorter’s soprano-line is still undervalued, one of his finest on record. Some of the material was recorded at Zawinul’s home, with his kids romping in the background, and only later put together in the studio, and it is this balance between improvisational immediacy and brilliantly crafted overdubbing that gives the record its lasting freshness and power.

& See also
JOE ZAWINUL, Zawinul
(1970; p. 380),
Di-a-lects
(1986; p. 503);
Miroslav Vitous, Journey’s End
(1982; p. 470)

WILLIAM PARKER
^&

Born 10 January 1952, New York City

Double bass

Through Acceptance Of The Mystery Peace

Eremite 12

Parker; Toshinori Kondo (t, ahn); Arthur Williams (t); Jemeel Moondoc (as); Will Connell Jr (as, f); Daniel Carter (as, ts, f, t); Charles Brackeen, John Hagen (ts); Rozanne Levine, Henry Warner (cl); Peter Kuhn (bcl); Ramsey Ameen, Billy Bang, Polly Bradfield, Jason Hwang (vn); Tristan Honsinger (clo); Dennis Charles (d); Roger Baird (perc). February 1974, January 1979.

William Parker said (1999):
‘When I first played bass, I could see each string as a beam of light and the bow as a kind of prism, and each string broke up into different colour bands, different harmonics. It was very spiritual and very beautiful.’