The Penguin Jazz Guide (114 page)

Once with Impulse!, Barbieri embarked on a series of ‘Chapter’ records, beginning with what was essentially a folk-jazz album on
Chapter One: Latin America
, evolving through Brazilian jazz with avant-garde tinges to the high gloss of the Bottom Line gig documented on
Alive In New York
. Superstardom of a sort beckoned with the soundtrack music for
Last Tango In Paris
, with its unforgettable main theme, which has been a Barbieri favourite ever since, and he had also appeared in front of Oliver Nelson in big-band recordings from Switzerland put out by the Flying Dutchman label, but it’s the New York record that best captures Barbieri with a small group, playing his incantatory, deceptively simple lines.

The opening ‘Milonga Triste’ is magnificent, a slow-burning, erotic epic that recalls the Barbieri of
Last Tango
. Johnson brilliantly elaborates the line with a countering phrase of his own, while Metzke (the most underrated guitarist of his generation) throws the saxophonist vivid cues. ‘La China Leoncia Arreo La Correntinada Trajo Entre La Muchachada La Flor De La Juventud’ is reprised from the previous ‘Chapter’ and has a darker and more brooding quality in this context. ‘Lluvia Azul’ provides an intense climax, its sheer energy and bravura not enough to disguise the sophistication of harmonic invention, not least from the peerless Johnson. The rhythm section is no less wonderful; Martinez understands
the modal approach and is happy to work apart from conventional changes, while Carter is his usual utterly dependable self. Any feeling that the percussion sections of earlier records were more cluttered than truly effective is dispelled by Portinho’s tight but expansive playing.

JACO PASTORIUS

Born John Francis Pastorius, 1 December 1951, Norristown, Pennsylvania; died 21 September 1987, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Bass guitar

Jaco Pastorius

Epic 712761

Pastorius; Randy Brecker, Ron Tooley (t); Peter Graves (btb); Peter Gordon (frhn); Hubert Laws (picc); Wayne Shorter (ss); David Sanborn (as); Michael Brecker (ts); Howard Johnson (bs); Alex Darqui, Herbie Hancock (p, ky); Richard Davis, Homer Mensch (b); Bobby Oeconomy, Narada Michael Walden, Lenny White (d); Don Alias (perc); Othello Molineaux, Leroy Williams (steel d); Sam and Dave (v); strings. 1975.

Joe Zawinul commented (1996):
‘What a musician he was, this bright, golden boy. But what an end! What a miserable, pointless end!’

Object of a veritable cult for a brief period, and of an unhealthy martyrdom following his ugly death, Pastorius raised the bass guitar – a fretless instrument – to the level of a lead instrument, his solo features somewhat resembling Jimi Hendrix’s more theatrical performances. Spectacularly gifted from childhood, Pastorius tried several instruments and played rock, soul and reggae before settling on jazz. He was a member of Weather Report – the antithesis, in all but ego, of founding member Miroslav Vitous – from 1976 to 1982, and in retrospect this was perhaps his finest hour. After departing the group, and the wise tutelage and discipline of Joe Zawinul, Pastorius continued to play and record, moving into fascinating new areas that involved elements of Caribbean music and what he called ‘punk jazz’, but steadily succumbing to mental problems exacerbated with drug and alcohol use. Pretty much ostracized by the music business and even old friends towards the end, he was beaten to death by a nightclub bouncer in Fort Lauderdale, where he had grown up. Pastorius picked the fight.

This Epic record – now on Sony – was made just before he joined Weather Report. Jaco makes a clear statement by starting the session with a brilliant realization on bass guitar of Miles Davis’s ‘Donna Lee’ (one thinks of what Prince did with Charlie Parker’s ‘Now’s The Time’ a little later), but then immediately following up with a soul song, ‘Come On, Come Over’, which features vocals by Sam and Dave. At one level, it all sounds a little forced and more than a little like special pleading – for the fretless bass, for a certain kind of ‘eclecticism’ – but Jaco’s musical imagination had sufficient force to hold such disparate material together and make a convincing whole of it. His collaboration with Herbie Hancock on ‘Kuru/Speak Like A Child’ is quite brilliantly conceived and the arrangement of ‘Okonkole Y Trompa’, written for bass and French horn, is among the most ambitious, but quite simple, things he ever did. ‘Opus Pocus’ and ‘Used To Be A Cha Cha’, of which two versions are included, are more free-blowing.

Pastorius is widely known outside jazz, largely because of his work with Joni Mitchell but also because he tapped into a certain rock god vein in his later work. Perversely, he remains overlooked within jazz, for precisely the same reasons: Mitchell, though, is now an honoured composer in this music, and when one gets down to it, there is no essential aesthetic difference between a 20-minute John Coltrane saxophone solo and a 20-minute Jaco Pastorius bass solo – at his height, Jaco sustained the comparison very comfortably.

DEXTER GORDON
^&

Born 27 February 1923, Los Angeles, California; died 25 April 1990, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Tenor saxophone

More Than You Know

Steeplechase SCCD 31030

Gordon; Palle Mikkelborg, Allan Botschinsky, Benny Rosenfeld, Idrees Sulieman (t, flhn); Richard Boone, Vincent Nilsson (tb); Axel Windfeld (btb); Ole Molin (g); Thomas Clausen (p, electric p); Kenneth Knudsen (syn); Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (b); Alex Riel, Ed Thigpen (d); Klaus Nordsoe (perc); chamber winds and strings. February–March 1975.

Dexter Gordon said (1979):
‘Some writers say that settling in Europe is bad for your music, because you don’t need to try. Settling in Detroit is bad for your music if you don’t keep trying, but if you do, it’s pretty much like any place else, just quieter and more peaceful.’

Between Danish radio and Steeplechase, Gordon was exhaustively documented during his sojourn in Scandinavia. Multi-disc sets of live club material were still appearing long after his death. None of it is in any way inferior, but in bulk it tests the loyalty of even the most devoted – and well-heeled – fan. Oddly, this elegant set, which casts Gordon in front of an orchestra arranged by Palle Mikkelborg, has rarely commanded the respect it conspicuously merits. Set alongside the long hours of easy-going hard bop, it’s a refreshing context for the Gordon saxophone and Mikkelborg’s own original of the set, ‘Good Morning Sun’, is a beautiful thing. That even committed Gordon fans don’t know it seems passing strange. Dexter has a few nice lines of his own: ‘Ernie’s Tune’ and ‘Tivoli’ aren’t just blowing themes, but carefully weighted compositions, treated respectfully by the arranger. He opens the set with Coltrane’s ‘Naima’, raising once again the old question about who influenced who, when and how much. Even after hearing this faithful but individualistic treatment, the jury won’t be in a hurry to come back in with a definitive answer. It’s a great set and deserves wider celebrity.

& See also
Dexter Gordon On Dial
(1947; p. 113),
Doin’ Alright
(1961; p. 275)

ENRICO RAVA

Born 20 August 1939, Trieste, Italy

Trumpet

The Pilgrim And The Stars

ECM 847322-2

Rava; John Abercrombie (g); Palle Danielsson (b); Jon Christensen (d). June 1975.

Enrico Rava says:
‘I remember I had a beautiful hat, on this recording session; also an excellent steak tartar in the restaurant near by – we were in Stuttgart. Unfortunately we were travelling in an uncomfortable Volkswagen minibus. Hard times. But Manfred Eicher was very happy about the music.’

Rava grew up in Turin, where he met American musicians. Influenced by Miles Davis, he gravitated towards the avant-garde with Gato Barbieri, and later with Steve Lacy, and with the Globe Unity Orchestra. Much like Tomasz Stanko, whom he very superficially resembles, his interest in free jazz is tempered by an awareness of other genres and styles and over the years Rava has recorded a number of rock- and electronically tinged albums and his own brand of jazz
noir.
Some of this can be heard on the debut
Il Giro Del Mondo In 80 Giorni
, recorded for Black Saint in 1972, but when Rava went to ECM for the first of three fine
albums – he returned to the label in 2003 – the label’s pristine sound met the deceptively strength of the trumpet-playing perfectly and delivered a modern classic.

The Pilgrim And The Stars
opens with the sky-treading title-track, a simple enough idea within which great spaces seem to open up. The central drama of the recording is the interweaving of trumpet and guitar. Abercrombie rarely pushed out quite so far and some of his lines are stretched to cracking. Even the more immediately accessible tracks like ‘Bella’ seem to move in the direction of total freedom, but always restore some element of precarious order. ‘Parks’ and ‘Surprise Hotel’ sound almost like soundtrack cues from some forgotten thriller, set in off-season Trieste, perhaps, with a voice-over from Claudio Magris, and they help to sew together a virtual movie for the ears. We’ve loved this record for half a lifetime and it never fails to deliver something new.

MIKE OSBORNE
^&

Born 28 September 1941, Hereford, England; died 19 September 2007, Hereford, England

Alto saxophone, clarinet

All Night Long

Ogun OGCD 700

Osborne; Harry Miller (b); Louis Moholo (d). July 1975.

Mike Osborne said (1976):
‘I’ve never really been comfortable anywhere except when I’m playing. People talk about drugs in jazz. I think it
is
a drug, a kind of dependency.’

Mike Osborne’s voice was silenced early. Mental illness meant that after 1982 he did not play at all. For his short time on the scene, though, he blazed, appearing on countless British jazz and improvisation projects and making records of his own, all of them distinguished by that soulful, keening saxophone sound that was as distinctive as a fingerprint.

A Mike Osborne gig, with whatever line-up, was a furious dance of disparate parts: simple hymnic tunes, wild staccato runs, sweet ballad formations and raw blues, all stitched together into a continuous fabric that left most listeners exhausted, and none unmoved.
All Night Long
catches the trio at its peak, live at Willisau in 1975. The title-track is curiously reminiscent of the Ornette Coleman trio, with Miller’s arco bass sawing back and forth underneath the flowing alto lines and Moholo’s relaxed freebeat. ‘Waltz’ is the darkest dance imaginable, one of those moments when Ossie’s demons seemed ready to emerge. Almost every time, though, he conjures something positive, even celebratory out of the material. ‘Ken’s Tune’ is a long wild whirl with a substantial bebop component, while ‘Round Midnight’, probably his favourite jazz repertory piece, has an air of wild inevitability, as did Ossie’s subsequent decline, but what he left behind was as precious as a pearl, even if not quite the ‘Scotch Pearl’ evoked here.

& See also
SOS, SOS
(1975; p. 419)

DON CHERRY
^&

Born 18 November 1936, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; died 19 October 1995, Malaga, Spain

Pocket-trumpet, wooden flutes, doussn’gouni, piano, keyboards, miscellaneous instruments, voice

Brown Rice

Jazz Heritage 397001

Cherry; Frank Lowe (ts); Ricky Cherry (ky); Charlie Haden (b); Billy Higgins (d); Bunchie Fox (perc); Verna Gillis (v). 1975.

Backstage in Poland (1992), Don Cherry said:
‘I feel the earth spinning under my feet, always. I like to move with it and everywhere I go, it’s the same
out there
[i.e. in the auditorium]: there are friends waiting to share the vibration.’

In later years, Cherry became a kind of planetary
griot
, much loved in Europe (where he, in turn, felt most at home), but restlessly travelling. Only familiar health problems restricted his activities. Originally released simply as
Don Cherry
, the 1975 album is a lost classic of the era and probably the best place to sample the trumpeter as both soloist – he blows some stunningly beautiful solos here – and as the shamanic creator of a unique, unearthly sound that makes dull nonsense of most ‘fusion’ work of the period. Miles Davis’s – indeed, John Coltrane’s – interest in Indian music was undoubtedly sincere, but it scarcely went below the surface when translated to his own practice. Here, though, Cherry absorbs subcontinental and African influences and instead of using them simply as colours and rhythmic variations allows them to shape the music from the inside out. It isn’t ‘world music’, but a vivid urban melting pot of sound, as vibrant as anything his fellow trumpeter turned up after
Bitches Brew.
Lowe’s saxophone squawks and yelps in ways that remove it from the familiar idiom of ‘jazz sax’. Haden’s wah-wah bass yaws back and forth on the title-track, which is still a club favourite, but it’s the two long cuts, ‘Chenrezig’ and ‘Malkauns’, which give the album its unique character and beauty. Cherry’s tone seems softer than usual, though no less emphatic, and as it drifts in and out of the foreground, one has a strong sense of going on a journey with the music. Exceptional and recommended.