The Penguin Jazz Guide (151 page)

& See also
Karma
(1969; p. 363)

MASSIMO URBANI

Born 8 May 1957, Rome, Italy; died 24 June 1993, Rome, Italy

Alto saxophone

The Blessing

Red RR 123257-2

Urbani; Maurizio Urbani (ts); Danilo Rea (p); Giovanni Tommaso (b); Roberto Gatto (d). February 1993.

Saxophonist Carlo Actis Dato says:
‘E’ stato il primo in Italia tra i giovani jazzisti degli anni ’70 a suonare il sax con quella “furia vitale” tipica dei saxofonisti neri americani. E’ passato poi dal free al be-bop con una padronanza tecnica strabiliante!’

Urbani’s senseless death robbed Europe of a player whose records are a flawed testament to a bopper of enormous guts and facility. Marcello Piras described him as a ‘wastrel genius’. He emerged as a 17-year-old prodigy in Giorgio Gaslini’s group, but was prodigal with his own health and succumbed to a heroin overdose aged only 36. Urbani’s earlier records sometimes fail to live up to the
Wunderkind
reputation, and the surviving discography is spotty, with a good many releases of dubious provenance, sure sign of a morbid posthumous cult.

The opening of the first Red album,
360 Degrees Aeutopia
, consists of an astonishing outburst of alto on ‘Cherokee’, at a suitably hectic tempo, a good measure of Urbani’s bop mastery. He later tackled Coltrane and Ayler too, but less persuasively, though there’s a lustrous, acerbic ‘Naima’ on
Dedications
as well as one of his fighting bebop miniatures in ‘Scrapple From The Apple’.
Easy To Love
saw him not so much tamed as under rein, playing a relatively straightforward programme of standards and one original, ‘A Trane From The East’.

It might seem perverse or morbid to favour the last record of all over any of these, particularly when it comes so close to Urbani’s death (at around the same age as Parker, it turned out). It does, however, sum up his art. For all the glances in the direction of Coltrane, Urbani was a diehard bopper to the end as his race through ‘My Little Suede Shoes’ confirms. Interestingly, his tenor-playing brother’s two appearances offer a tart contrast in styles on a pair of originals by Tommaso; Maurizio seems to be looking in a different stylistic direction. But Urbani’s coruscating tone and energy command all the attention, and the two contrasting takes of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ are curtain calls of genius. He ends, as he began, with a solo tribute to the master: ‘Blues For Bird’ takes the story back round to the 22-year-old’s arc-welded ‘Cherokee’. Had he lived, Urbani would not yet be 60. What might he have achieved?

BILL FRISELL

Born 18 March 1951, Baltimore, Maryland

Guitar

Have A Little Faith

Elektra Nonesuch 79301

Frisell; Don Byron (cl, bcl); Guy Klucevesek (acc); Kermit Driscoll (b); Joey Baron (d). March 1993.

Bill Frisell says:
‘My first few albums were made up mostly of original compositions. It was important for me to establish what my own musical world might sound like. (I haven’t gotten there yet, but am still trying.) Recording
Have A Little Faith
gave me the opportunity to play music that had inspired me. Hopefully it also gives the listener a hint as to where I come from and a context into which they can place my compositions.’

Once the first-call guitar man of the ’80s scene, a countrified Hendrix with robust jazz chops, Frisell has developed in his own unique direction, mixing up avant-garde noise and lyricism, clean-plucked lines and heavy processing, musical adventure with something of Charlie Haden’s elegiac conservatism.

Frisell was raised in Denver and studied for a time at Berklee, where Pat Metheny was a contemporary. His first jazz influence was Wes Montgomery, but without displacing jazz as his main language other American vernaculars, the music of the hinterland, began to play an increasing role in his work. While recording for ECM, he made a number of albums, notably 1987’s
Lookout For Hope
, that seemed to synthesize jazz with folk and country forms. This was picked up again when he moved to the more pop-savvy Elektra and released
Before We Were Born.
By the early ’90s, Frisell was moving in a direction quite different to Jimmy Giuffre’s folk-jazz, but with strong similarities.

On 1992’s
This Land
, Frisell restores much of the
Lookout For Hope
line-up and experiments further with stylistic hybrids, tuneful miniatures that have the resonant familiarity of Aaron Copland’s
Appalachian Spring
and
Billy The Kid
. Sonically, it’s a fascinating combination, with Fowlkes and Byron often combining to provide elegant dissonances (as on ‘Jimmy Carter, Part 1’). On the marvellous
Have A Little Faith
those duties, and those of cellist Hank Roberts on
Lookout
, are taken on by master accordionist Guy Klucevesek. Frisell’s affectionate examination of Americana takes in Stephen Foster, Sousa, Ives, Copland, Sonny Rollins, Bob Dylan and, most controversially, Madonna. There’s no attempt to debunk or satirize, and even Madonna’s ‘Live To Tell’, despite a heavily distorted cadenza with all Frisell’s switches and pedals on, sticks pretty close to the original. Byron’s role is relatively marginal, perhaps even decorative, but by this stage he was exploring his own eclectic directions, and it’s Klucevesek and Baron who rise to the leader’s gentle challenge. It’s a pretty record, with rattlesnake bite and some heavy hitting behind the familiar material.

DON PULLEN
^&

Born 25 December 1941, Roanoke, Virginia; died 22 April 1995, East Orange, New Jersey

Piano

Ode To Life

Blue Note B2-89233

Pullen; Carlos Ward (as, f); Nilson Matta (b); Guilherme Franco, Mor Thiam (perc). February 1993.

Trumpeter Larry Kramer says:
‘His music had it all: power, swing, warmth, freedom. He came from gospel and R&B, then through the avant-garde and pulled in the rest of the world: Brazil, Cuba, Native American.’

Saxophonist and co-leader George Adams died in November 1992 and left a large hole in Pullen’s spirit. A couple of years earlier, the pianist had begun recording with a new group called African Brazilian Connection. The debut recording was a bright and propulsive project called
Kele Mou Bana
. Pullen had been signed by Blue Note, but there was only a diffident response to his new direction and the more sombre, half-resigned, half-defiant tone one hears on the sequel,
Ode To Life
, is not just an expression of grief but also of dissatisfaction with how his work was treated and received in the US.

Ode To Life
is dedicated to Adams, and at its heart is the warm but pained ‘Ah, George, We Hardly Knew Ya’, in which Pullen stitches together a series of aural memories of the great saxophonist. Ward is more than up to the task, sounding like a rarefied version of Adams, but with that typical, almost folksy wail in his tone. It’s preceded by ‘El Matador’, a relatively generic ‘Spanish tinge’ piece, and followed by Mor Thiam’s extravagantly rhythmic ‘Aseeko! (Get Up And Dance)’, an invitation that sounds more bittersweet with each
hearing. There is a decidedly autumnal feel to this record. It begins with something like a swagger on ‘The Third House On The Right’ and once again it confidently chops styles and traditions into a very personal stew. But there is no mistaking the record’s shadowy subtexts and when Pullen settles into the aching melody of the title-track, strictly ‘Variation On Ode Io Life’, it is clear that all paths on this emotionally effortful record lead to the grave, and that the triumphs of song are hard-won.

& See also
Evidence Of Things Unseen
(1983; p. 480)

SHIRLEY HORN

Born 1 May 1934, Washington DC; died 20 October 2005, Cheverly, Maryland

Voice, piano

Light Out Of Darkness

Verve 519703-2

Horn; Gary Bartz (as); Charles Ables (g, b); Tyler Mitchell (b); Steve Williams (d). April–May 1993.

Singer Claire Martin recorded a tribute to Shirley Horn:
‘There are so many things about her singing that enthral me, but that very short audible intake of breath she does at the end of a perfect phrase, almost as if she is gasping at the very thought of what she has just said, is my absolute favourite quirk. That and insisting that she be paid in dollars even when in the UK because “I don’t want notes with some broad’s picture on it.” ’

Horn studied piano at college and was an underrated keyboard exponent. She started leading groups as early as 1954, but remained a DC secret until she started touring Europe in the ’80s, when the Steeplechase label picked her up for a belated ‘debut’ – there was a scattering of early stuff – that yielded a spare, reflective trio music quite different from what most newcomers to Horn’s music profess to expect. At the end of the decade, Verve cottoned on to the possibility of a new diva. What amounted to Horn’s second comeback was distinguished by a perfect touch and luxury-class production values. Actually, in terms of her own performances or those of another supportive trio there’s no special advance on the Steeplechases. The first two Verves continue to work at favourite standards, but
You Won’t Forget Me
is a step forward in its pristine attention to detail, awesome array of guest star soloists – Miles Davis was a great Horn admirer, but is well below his best – and the faithfulness with which Horn’s voice is recorded. There was a later tribute to Miles, which was the culmination of the Verve period, but
Light Out Of Darkness
is a superior record. It’s pitched as a tribute to Ray Charles, another singer-pianist, and they found her some interesting guests to appear with the trio. The doughty Ables usefully switches to guitar here and there, with Tyler Mitchell stepping in on bass. After the heavyweight emoting of the preceding
Here’s To Life
, Horn sounds almost carefree on the likes of ‘Hit The Road Jack’ and ‘I Got A Man’. Bartz lends a few swinging obbligatos, but the emphasis here is on Horn’s understanding of the beat, her dry, almost elemental phrasing and the intuitive touch of her regular group.

DON BRADEN

Born 20 November 1963, Cincinnati, Ohio

Tenor saxophone

After Dark

Criss Cross 1081

Braden; Scott Wendholt (t, flhn); Noah Bless (tb); Steve Wilson (as); Darrell Grant (p); Christian McBride (b); Carl Allen (d). May 1993.

Don Braden said (1995):
‘I got pushed along at summer camp, a Jamey Aebersold thing, but a lot of my practising was done to the radio, and I can recommend that: you play along to
everything
, and you find yourself working in some pretty difficult keys, especially when the music’s rock or funk.’

Braden’s Criss Cross debut was widely praised but it wasn’t a patch on the sequel, an elegant set of standards and refreshingly straightforward originals. Instead of overloading themes with harmonic changes, Braden builds in bridge sections which shift the tempo from fours to threes. He’s an intelligent arranger, too. The third album for Gerry Teekens marked a sudden and dramatic maturing of his style. Not only is Braden playing with grace and beauty as before, but his writing and arranging skills seem to have made a huge step forward and the septet tracks are so confidently and naturally written that the music has the open texture of a smaller group, but with all the weight and substance of a mid-size ensemble. There is a nocturnal programme to the record which gives it a sombre, though by no means downbeat, emphasis. Originals like the uneasy ‘R.E.M.’ and the gently upbeat ‘Dawn’ are interspersed with ‘You And The Night And The Music’, ‘Monk’s Dream’ and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Creepin’’, which may well represent a throwback to those days practising in front of the wireless. An essential contemporary record and the kind of thing Blue Note might have been putting out three decades earlier.

ORPHY ROBINSON

Born 30 October 1960, London

Vibraphone, marimba, soprano saxophone

The Vibes Describes

Blue Note 829223

Robinson; Joe Bashorun (p, ky); Rowland Sutherland (f, af, picc); Tunde Jegede (clo, kora); Nik Cohen, Dudley Phillips (b); Andy Gangadeen (d); Winston Clifford (d, perc); Nana Vasconcelos (perc); Leroy Osbourne (v, g); Mae McKenna (v). May 1993.

Bassist Hugh Hopper said (2001):
‘I always get irritable when anyone describes him as “Orphy Robinson, vibist”. Orphy is what we all aspire to be, a complete musician. The vibes just happens to be the instrument he plays.’

Orphy Robinson has followed a fascinating course in music, starting with a highly original and personal concept, as represented by his two Blue Note records, and then moving into free music, a challenging but certainly not lucrative end of the jazz ‘market’. Robinson’s debut record,
When Tomorrow Comes
, was a surprise. No one expected a straight-ahead jazz album, but equally no one was quite prepared for anything quite as original. As always on his own projects, he took a modest share of solo space, preferring to concentrate on a subtly inflected group sound. Technically, the sequel lacked some of the gloss, perhaps because Robinson decided to produce himself. But his own playing has leapt forward and Annavas (as he called the band) now sounds like a solid unit, its roots and influences teasingly difficult to pin down. Compositions like ‘Fore To The Power Of M’ and ‘The Loneliest Monk’ – a reference to Mao Zedong, we believe – balance imagination and taste with impeccable arranging skills, and he has the self-confidence to include an arrangement of the Stranglers’ ‘Golden Brown’. He’s as interesting a musician as any to emerge in the ’80s in Britain and the influence of these records is still being felt, even if Blue Note did its usual U-turn and failed to get behind him for longer.