The Penguin Jazz Guide (147 page)

Byron’s anger is impressively contained, though a vocal by the Detroit poet Sadiq comes close to violating the dignity of his response. ‘Tuskegee Experiment’ is scored for quintet, with piano, marimba, electric bass and drums generating a threatening, percussive sound. On the opening ‘Tuskegee Strutter’s Ball’, ‘Next Love’ and the beautiful ‘Tears’, Byron establishes his theme in unison with Frisell, favouring a bright coloratura and spiky stop-start phrasing. On ‘Diego Rivera’ and ‘In Memoriam: Uncle Dan’ (the latter a duet with Workman), he doubles on bass clarinet and switches to the longer line and romantic phrasing first heard on the unaccompanied ‘Waltz For Ellen’ that starts the record.

A klezmer-inspired record followed, then work for Blue Note intended to showcase Byron as a distinctive post-bop composer. So far, though, nothing has surpassed the debut.

SONNY SHARROCK

Born Warren Harding Sharrock, 27 August 1940, Ossining, New York; died 25 May 1994, Ossining, New York

Guitar

Ask The Ages

Axiom 422 848957 2

Sharrock; Pharoah Sanders (ts); Charnett Moffett (b); Elvin Jones (d). 1991.

Guitarist Larry Coryell says:
‘Sonny really committed to the pure avant-garde approach – you know, with a comb in his left hand like a slide, really abstract, influences coming from Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders. Before he died he made the best record for that genre ever made, the one with Pharoah and Elvin Jones. He reached the “completion point” of his concept there.’

Sharrock’s first musical experiences were in doo-wop, until he was turned on to jazz by hearing
Kind Of Blue
. An asthmatic condition meant he had to abandon saxophone. He later played with Miles Davis on ‘Willie Nelson’ on
A Tribute To Jack Johnson
, but turned down an invitation to join the group. One wonders whether he would have lasted long or whether his avant-garde approach would have been too much for the trumpeter. Ironically, Sharrock made a splash with Herbie Mann on
Memphis Underground
, even if he does sometimes sound as if he’s on the wrong date. Catch him on ‘Philly Dog’, from the 1968 Mann record
Live At The Whisky A Go Go.
Phew.

Sharrock began recording under his own name, making a number of records with his wife Linda’s vocalizing as a second front-line instrument. But he seemed to have been overlooked by the music business and it wasn’t until he emerged with Bill Laswell, Peter Brötzmann and Ronald Shannon Jackson as Last Exit that Sharrock became a
bona fide
jazz star. Ironically, he made his one
bona fide
masterpiece almost at the end of his life.

Ask The Ages
reunited him with Pharoah Sanders, who used Sharrock on a couple of early records, and teamed him with Elvin Jones and Charles Moffett’s son, Charnett. The writing ranged from dense and dark on ‘Many Mansions’, the one track that came close to a Last Exit aesthetic, to almost wistfully romantic on ‘Who Does She Hope To Be?’, which melts the heart, but the record is best summed up by the fire music of the opening ‘Promises Kept’, as exciting a start to an album as any from that decade. Sanders is in great form, avoiding self-indulgence and playing open, direct lines that mostly sit in behind the leader’s. Anyone who knows Sharrock from
Monkey Pockie Boo
or
Space Ghost Coast To Coast
might not at first recognize some of this, but its quality is unmissable and it’s tragic that Sonny didn’t stick around long enough to build on it.

DAVE BURRELL

Born 10 September 1940, Middletown, Ohio

Piano

The Jelly Roll Joys

Gazell 4003

Burrell (p solo). 1991.

Dave Burrell says:
‘Sam Charters of Gazell called out of the blue some 20 years ago. He’d heard some Jelly Roll in my playing and asked if I’d be interested in recording some of Morton’s compositions. At the time I didn’t have any of them under my fingers, so when I first saw James Dapogny’s 500-page
Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton
:
The Collected Piano Music
I knew I had my work cut out. The book contains every piece he ever published, some 40 compositions. I searched for the ones with strains that would lend themselves to modern improvisation. There is something unique in each of them, but the rhythms in “Freakish” and “The Crave” are unpredictably amazing.’

It will seem perverse to represent one of the finest contemporary composers in the music by a record of Jelly Roll Morton themes, but Burrell stands squarely in that distinguished tradition and, importantly, his own work is represented here by two selections, ‘Popolo Paniolo’ from his jazz opera
Windward Passages
and the 24-bar stride piece ‘A.M. Rag’ (aka ‘Margy Pargy’), and these in turn are placed alongside John Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘Moment’s Notice’, and Charlie Parker’s ‘Billie’s Bounce’, all played in stride.

Gazell’s Sam Charters is, like Burrell himself, a devoted historian of the music. The pianist grew up in Hawaii; both parents sang. He went to Berklee and established a career while still a student. The avant-garde beckoned but even the band name Untraditional Jazz Improvisation Team suggested that the tradition was always there for Burrell to work with/against and that approach can be heard clearly in his Morton interpretations, which are both strikingly faithful to the original conception of each song and also invested with a freedom of gesture within the hard – rather than strict – rhythms that makes them sound at once familiar and attractively alien. Burrell understands instinctively what Morton meant by the ‘Spanish tinge’ and it’s evident here in the rich arpeggiations and rhythmic snaps that shape some of the pieces. A triumphant performance of key jazz repertoire.

HOUSTON PERSON

Born 10 November 1934, Florence, South Carolina

Tenor saxophone

The Lion And His Pride

Muse 5480

Person; Philip Harper (t); Benny Green (p); Christian McBride (b); Winard Harper (d). September 1991.

Houston Person says:
‘I believe music is a force for good. It brings people together, irrespective of colour or creed. It’s a common language. It has nothing to do with politics. It lifts people up. An education without music isn’t any kind of education at all.’

A relatively late starter in music, Person has become a godfather to a younger generation of musicians, and to fans, who have adopted him as one of the heroes of acid jazz. A fine ballad player with a low, urgent tone in the lineage of Coleman Hawkins, but probably more like Gene Ammons or Arnett Cobb, he is a respected figure in the business, producing records at both High Note and Savant. Thanks to those associations, his most recent work, much of it with or celebrating the life of his long-time partner, Etta Jones, is readily available. The
vagaries of jazz recording and distribution, though, have meant that his substantial body of work for Muse now has to be hunted for.

Which is as good a cue as any for
The Lion And His Pride
, which explicitly casts Houston as Mufasa to a group of up-and-comers who are as ready to be cuffed down by one of his quietly magisterial solos as they are to pipe up on their own account. It’s a not unchallenging programme, with the love theme from
Black Orpheus
, ‘I Remember Clifford’, Miles’s ‘Dig’, a couple of romantic standards and ‘Captain Hook’, all done in a style that might be located at the soul-jazz end of hard bop. There are the buoyant comping of Benny Green, crisp, Lee Morgan-like lines from Philip Harper and a confident rhythm from Chris McBride, who learned more than he maybe imagined from this date, and the other Harper sibling. Person is one of the good guys of the business, and so is too often overlooked. Time this one made a reappearance.

JANE BUNNETT

Born 22 October 1956, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Soprano saxophone, flute

Spirits Of Havana

Denon CAN 9011

Bunnett; Larry Cramer (t, flhn); Frank Emilio, Flynn Rodrigues, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Hilario Durán Torres (p); Ahmed Barroso (g); Kieran Overs (b); Eduardo Diaz Anaya, Justo M. Garcia Arango, Orlando Lage Bozva, Guillermo Barreto Brown, Ignacio Ubicio Castillo, Jacinto Soull Castillo, Ernestoi Rodriguez Guzman, Francisco Hernández Mora, Roberto García Valdes (perc); Merceditas Váldes, Grupo Yoruba Andabo (v). September–October 1991.

Jane Bunnett says:
‘When I went to Cuba it was like getting hit by lightning. It changed everything. Cuban music was my missing link. I used to wonder: “What if Coltrane had come here?” ’

Given that her introduction to modern jazz was hearing the Mingus group and a subsequent period of study with Steve Lacy, one might have expected Bunnett to go down a very different route, something perhaps close to fellow soprano specialist Jane Ira Bloom’s individualistic modernism. Bunnett, though, has embraced Cuban music, and with an application that takes her work far beyond ‘Latin’ dabbling and towards a historically inflected view of an important tradition marginalized by politics.

She originally studied piano, but injury put paid to that. Switching to saxophone and flute she has developed a dry, unembellished sound that relies on a sophisticated rhythmic sense to bring drama to the line. Bunnett has been shrewd in associating herself with senior practitioners – Dewey Redman and Don Pullen played on early records – and in basing herself and trumpeter husband Larry Cramer for quite long periods in the Cuban capital and countryside.

She is therefore entitled to be adamant that
Spirits Of Havana
isn’t just another Latin jazz date, but a genuine attempt to inhabit a Cuban perspective. Bunnett was already listening to and playing salsa before her first DNA-changing visit to Havana, but as a musician who always seems to play for the group she was immediately and instinctively drawn to an idiom which puts ensemble playing at a premium. The opening ‘Hymn’ is a flute tribute to the spirit of Miles Davis, who had just died: what if Miles had ever gone to Havana? There is a searing ‘Epistrophy’ with Cuban percussion not so much added as incorporated into the composition. For the rest, the material is nearly all traditional African-Caribbean or specially written in collaboration with Guillermo Barreto Brown, who masterminded the project.

Bunnett’s soprano and flute are haunting on ‘La Luna Arriba’ by husband Larry Kramer, who is superb on the Monk tune. Frank Emilio’s ‘G.M.S.’ opens with pan-American flute but gets lost in a thicket of percussion, the only time the mix gets uncomfortably busy. Merceditas Váldes’s vocals will not be to everyone’s taste, but they’re integral to this music. Arguably, there were better and more highly finished projects to come, not least the CD
Ritmo + Soul
(attributed to Bunnett and the Spirits Of Havana) or the Cuban Piano Masters project, but this record stands out as the footprint of a musical discovery, with all the excitement and sense of adventure that implies.

JOE WILDER

Born 22 February 1922, Colwyn, Pennsylvania

Trumpet

Alone With Just My Dreams

Evening Star ES-101

Wilder; James Williams (p); Remo Palmieri (g); Jay Leonhart (b); Sherman Ferguson (d). August 1991.

Trumpeter Pete Smith says:
‘Joe told me that one time he was playing in a club in Kansas and a white woman came up and said: “You remind me of a young man my husband used to play with.” Joe asked what his name had been and she said: “Bix Beiderbecke.” Turned out it was Frankie Trumbauer’s wife.’

Wilder is something of a forgotten man, who came up through the ranks of the bands – Les Hite – and then disappeared into the studios again. He made a few early records of his own, mostly professional smoothies for the bachelor pad market, but all of them marked by a rugged professionalism and never a fudged note. Like many who could duplicate the story, he re-emerged in later life, freshly admired but perhaps lacking the natural command of previous years. That’s certainly true in Wilder’s case. His articulation isn’t that of a young man, but his choice of notes and august delivery are still wonderful to hear. He made a nice group of records for Evening Star over a two-year period. Though there are better-known names on the later ones, the first is the best: on ‘Struttin’ With Some Barbecue’ he evokes memories of a lost generation of hot trumpetmen, but the ballads are special and the closing ‘What A Wonderful World’ will melt hearts of stone.

PER HENRIK WALLIN

Born 17 July 1946, Stockholm, Sweden; died 15 June 2005

Piano

Dolphins, Dolphins, Dolphins

Dragon DRCD 215

Wallin; Mats Gustafsson (ss, ts, bs); Kjell Nordeson (d). August 1991.

Saxophonist Mats Gustafsson remembers:
‘Per Henrik was the greatest teacher, just by being himself! To have witnessed him and Erik Dahlbäck playing a free duo one night in Stockholm at a social club for dancing (!) was just … hilarious. They played for an hour, some bars straight-ahead, but then at lightning speed into free territory. It caused the dancers a few problems. Quite surreal.’

A major figure at home and generously recorded by Dragon as a leader, Wallin is little known anywhere else, though musicians who have encountered him or his work invariably
enthuse. He is far from being in the normal run of ‘musicians’ musicians’, though, but a player who combines real sophistication of form with a heady excitement when he improvises. Wallin’s activities were truncated by a crippling accident in 1988, after which he recorded much less.