The Penguin Jazz Guide (165 page)

It is perhaps significant that his best record by a country mile and one that features essentially the same studio group was made for next to nothing and issued mid-price as an official bootleg.
Banned In New York
documents a single gig by the quartet, set down on a DAT player and rush-released as a report on work in progress. Osby’s own ‘13th Floor’ starts things off, but from there he brings in Rollins, Ellington, Parker and Monk tunes and uses the material to fashion an utterly compelling treatise on the tradition and how it can fuel the playing of contemporary spirits on the bandstand, here and now. Each of the musicians makes his individual mark, but it’s the way the quartet develops and processes ideas, caught on the hoof, that makes the record so powerful and immediate. Osby has said that he wishes he could release several records a year, in the manner of the old Blue Note performers, and, if the results are like this, it’s a sentiment we echo.

PAUL BLEY
^&

Born 10 November 1932, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Piano

Not Two, Not One

EDM 559447

Bley; Gary Peacock (b); Paul Motian (d). January 1998.

Paul Bley said (1999):
‘The philosophy was that it wasn’t necessary to respond to one another when we played, that we could have three independent voices in parallel, playing in counterpoint and actually competing for attention at times.’

We were prematurely dismissive of
Not Two, Not One
in previous editions, though admittedly baffled rather than hostile. The dynamic of the group, right from the opening ‘Not Zero: In Three Parts’, doesn’t accord with the usual language assumptions of an improvising trio. There doesn’t seem to be communication between the elements and the music has at points an oddly randomized quality. However, once one accepts this as description rather than criticism, the music begins to make more sense and a new kind of empathy becomes evident, one that is readily modelled in the natural world when entities of quite different types and species are required to occupy a limited space. It is equivalent to the logic of a
dance rather than an aural experience and the spatial metaphor works well for almost every track on the record, which,
pace
our previous doubts, now seems one of Bley’s most important and compelling.

& See also
Closer
(1965; p. 330),
Axis
(1977; p. 439)

EDDIE HENDERSON

Born 26 October 1940, New York City

Trumpet, flugelhorn

Reemergence

Sharp Nine Records CD 1012-2

Henderson; Kevin Hays (p); Joe Locke (vib); Ed Howard (b); Billy Drummond (d). March 1998.

Eddie Henderson said (1999):
‘The main thing I learned from Miles had nothing to do with trumpet-playing. It was about how to put people together, how to shape a group that will deliver the music as you hear it.’

Miles Davis was a Henderson house-guest during a residency at the Blackhawk and, while obviously impressed by the youngster’s ability to play through
Sketches Of Spain
without a fluff, pointed out that Eddie was going to have to work out his own approach and voice. He was also apparently forgiving of the youngster’s criticism of
his
trumpet-playing, which didn’t match what young Eddie had been taught.

Henderson has certainly created an individual voice, but despite gigs with Miles, Herbie Hancock (during the electric/pre-Head Hunters period), Joe Henderson and his own group, he has remained essentially a part-time player, and has continued practising psychiatric medicine. For that reason, the discography has a slightly spotty aspect. There were a couple of good electric/fusion records early on, after leaving Hancock, but only in more recent times has the trumpeter established a significant list.

Dominated by the long and graceful ‘Gershwin Suite’,
Reemergence
is a triumphant record, a near-perfect articulation of Henderson’s skills as a leader. One of his gifts is to allow his players to complete the process of creation by leaving themes, notably his own composition ‘Dreams’, open-ended and only loosely arranged, so that performance actually completes the process of composition and arrangement. This time around, there are only a couple of Henderson originals in the set, which ends with the brief ‘Natsuko-san’, played straight and without solos, a simple message of love to his wife. Joe Locke is a key element and he brings the epic sweep of ‘Saturn’s Child’ to the date.

The Gershwin material is pitched just right: clever, warm, life-aware and sardonic without a hint of cynicism. ‘Summertime’ needs something a bit special these days, and the trumpeter gives it a soaring presence that blows the clichés away. ‘Embraceable You’ is equally good at the end of the sequence, expressive but disciplined. Everything on the album, from Wayne Shorter’s ‘This Is For Albert’ to the close, seems perfectly placed.

MARTIAL SOLAL
^&

Born 23 August 1927, Algiers, Algeria

Piano

Balade Du 10 Mars

Soul Note 121340 2

Solal; Marc Johnson (b); Paul Motian (d). March 1998.

Martial Solal said (1985):
‘Jazz enjoyed some very good times and there was some very good music using popular songs, songs from Broadway shows. But the time now is for jazz to concentrate on building its own repertoire of compositions, and not just a few chords and a small melody, proper compositions that will set free and challenge all musicians.’

Solal moved to France from his native Algeria in his early 20s, worked with Django Reinhardt and accompanied visiting or exiled Americans. He is a remarkable composer, creating complex themes out of simple intervals and brief melodic cells. At times, Solal has headed big bands and has written for film, but his main contribution is as a small-group and solo performer.

When Solal made his American debut at Newport 1963, Paul Motian was in the group. The association was revived 25 years later and produced some of the best music of the pianist’s career. Martial celebrated his 70th birthday with Paul and Gary Peacock on
Just Friends
(Dreyfus) and has rarely sounded more blues-based and swinging, eliding at least some of his subtler, ‘European’ configurations to produce what is arguably his most straight-ahead album ever. This is not to say that it lacks individuality. No one who has listened to him with any attention will mistake who the soloist is on ‘Willow Weep For Me’ or ‘You Stepped Out Of A Dream’, though it is not until halfway through the record, and a markedly original ‘Hommage À Frédéric Chopin’, that something of a more familiar Solal comes through.

Balade Du 10 Mars
is even better. The free-form improvisation on Motian’s ‘Gang Of Five’ is the most outside playing Solal has done on record for many years. ‘Round Midnight’ is a duet for piano and drums, recalling the same piece on the Newport record, which RCA should think hard about reissuing. Johnson stands in for Gary Peacock on this occasion and, as might be expected, the rhythm is looser and less rugged. As before, echoes of the classic Bill Evans trio are everywhere and it would be wonderful to hear either version of this group tackle ‘Gloria’s Step’ or ‘Waltz For Debby’. Martial’s touch is as deft and lyrical as ever, but there is a new and welcome hint of wildness to the playing, as if finally he feels relaxed enough in his own technique to cut loose and challenge the harmonic rules. Unusual to hear Solal concentrate so absolutely on standards and jazz repertory. ‘Night And Day’, ‘Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise’, ‘Almost Like Being In Love’, ‘The Lady Is A Tramp’ and ‘My Old Flame’ round out the programme, with a fine, unhackneyed interpretation of ‘Round Midnight’ and just one other original, ‘The Newest Old Waltz’, coming in right at the end.

& See also
Solitude
(2005; p. 702)

CHRIS SPEED

Born 1967, Seattle, Washington

Tenor saxophone, clarinet

Deviantics

Songlines SGL 1547-2

Speed; Cuong Vu (t); Skuli Sverrisson (b); Jim Black (d). October 1998.

Chris Speed said (1999):
‘I actually started on alto saxophone, but my teacher persuaded me to switch to clarinet. In the school band, I got switched to tenor because someone couldn’t make rehearsals and it just clicked. As to who influenced me, I honestly think that aside from the obvious people – Coltrane, Rollins, etc. – it’s been friends and associates who’ve made the biggest impact.’

One of the busiest players on the scene, Speed turns up in almost any kind of context, bringing with him a stern technique and a generous supply of kindred ideas. His background in
classical music is occasionally evident, but, like other equally busy players, the work under his own name sometimes lacks focus and finish.

This group, named after the first album
Yeah No
(Pachora has an overlapping personnel), has produced some fascinating work, however. On
Yeah No
, the frantic ‘Scribble Bliss’, the ghostly ‘The Dream And Memory Store’, the intense and purposeful ‘Merge’ each use the resources of the quartet to good ends without quite suggesting a particular vision. On its own terms, this is a sharp, funny exploration of some of the musics that Speed’s come across – jazz and everything else. In many ways the key player is Black, whose nutty rhythms are what really brings the group to life, as boisterous as the horns are.

Deviantics
pushes the ideas a little harder into a more coherent shape. This has elements of post-bop in it, but Vu is a strange player, as likely to play against the grain of whatever’s going on as to follow it, and the stew of influences is getting thicker and richer. Sverrisson’s odd ‘Tulip’ is a very curious mélange, and the following ‘Wheatstone’ is a storming modal blow. ‘Valya’ has an East European feel.

CHARLIE MARIANO

Born 12 November 1923, Boston, Massachusetts; died 16 June 2009, Cologne, Germany

Alto, tenor and soprano saxophones, flute, nagaswaram

Savannah Samurai

Jazzline JL 1153 2

Mariano; Vic Juris (g); Dieter Ilg (b); Jeff Hirshfield (d). 1998.

Charlie Mariano said (1999):
‘Interviewers put on this very serious face and say: “But of course you live in Europe now”, as if I had lost a leg! I say to them: “Yes, and I work with Indian musicians … does that mean I don’t play jazz any more?” Music is music. Where it comes from doesn’t matter very much.’

Critics were hasty in placing Mariano in the gaggle of post-Bird alto-players. He was born only three years after Parker, but his first and greatest influence remains Johnny Hodges. His studies in Indian music, and on the wooden, oboe-like nagaswaram, have helped emphasize the exotic overtones he absorbed from Hodges and which are already evident in the early, bop-inspired sessions. Mariano grew up in the Boston area and began his career with Shorty Sherock and with Stan Kenton, before co-leading a group with his then wife Toshiko Akiyoshi. He also worked with Mingus and for a time in the later ’60s dabbled in fusion music with an outfit called Osmosis. However, Mariano’s interests always lay further afield and he began to take an active interest in Indian music.
Bangalore
from 1998 was a fascinating multi-cultural montage, but it was another record from that year that brought together Mariano’s various interests in one convincing package.

No tablas, mridangam, veena, ghatam or konnakol here, and the title points to cultural traditions well away from the subcontinent, but it’s clear from just a few moments that underneath the whipsmart post-bop of
Savannah Samurai
there’s a solid but unconventional foundation of harmonic and rhythmic ideas that point away from the usual European-African sources. ‘Children’s Steps’ is a delightful opener, funky but with folkish qualities and a basic walking rhythm underpinning it. The guitarist’s ‘Luna Doone’ is taken on soprano, which became increasingly important to Mariano over the years and emphasizes his Hodges lineage. ‘Dark Alley’ is another Juris composition, with a hint of Bobby Watson in the line. There is a reprise at the end of the record, interestingly comparable to the Ornette Coleman–Pat Metheny
Song X
. Ilg, always an interesting writer, contributes the title-tune and the delightful ‘Waltz For Dani’, which tips its hat in the direction of Bill Evans. Charlie’s high, plaintive tone is so pure one might almost be listening to an oboe or cor, perhaps the pay-off from his own dabbling with double-reeded horns. The final four tracks
constitute a ‘Climate Suite’ – a ‘Four Seasons’ to you and me – and are collectively composed. Here again, Mariano combines an elemental straightforwardness of outline with maximum expression.

GEORGE COLEMAN

Born 8 March 1935, Memphis, Tennessee

Tenor saxophone

I Could Write A Book: The Music Of Richard Rodgers

Telarc 83439

Coleman; Harold Mabern (p); Jamil Nasser (b); Billy Higgins (d). May 1998.

Saxophonist Gordon Cruickshank said (1996):
‘His appearances in London in the ’80s were a revelation. I guarantee that if you did before-and-after comparisons on half a dozen British saxophonists after those Ronnie Scott’s appearances – and they were all there – you’d hear George Coleman’s influence. He maybe isn’t Coltrane, but I think he might have a longer-lasting impact on jazz harmony.’