The Penguin Jazz Guide (178 page)

Although they do an apocalyptic ‘Iron Man’ (Black Sabbath, not Eric Dolphy) to close
Give
, the originals are getting more prominence and are played with fierce conviction. Who could resist a track called ‘Cheney Piñata’, which is Iverson’s, though it’s the other two who score highest on writing credits with whipsmart themes that manage to skirt mere satire and deliver solid musical thump, as exciting and fresh as Nirvana were in rock when they came through. The persistent suggestion that BP purvey jazz for Neanderthals is absurdly wide of the mark. These are required listening.

WAYNE SHORTER
^&

Born 25 August 1933, Newark, New Jersey

Tenor and soprano saxophones

Alegría

Verve 543558

Shorter; Chris Gekker, Jeremy Pelt, Lew Soloff (t); Bruce Eidem, Jim Pugh, Steve Davis, Papo Vasquez, Michael Boschen (tb); Marcus Roja (tba); Chris Potter (bcl, ts); Brad Mehldau, Danilo Perez (p); John Patitucci (b); Brian Blade, Terri Lyne Carrington (d); Alex Acuña (perc); woodwinds, strings. 2002.

Wayne Shorter said (2002):
‘I don’t think in terms of “expressing myself” in jazz. I think that’s a misunderstanding. You make this thing, and you make it the best you can, and if it isn’t “jazz” and it doesn’t say anything about you, or me, that’s OK. Expression is what other people put on you.’

Shorter’s post-Blue Note career has a funny shape. For a decade and a half, he devoted his talents to Weather Report, but listening to that discography in sequence creates a curious impression that Wayne is detaching himself from Joe Zawinul and the group, but with infinite slowness. There were good things in some of his own records, but as of the ’90s a generation who had grown up hearing word of his eminence was not hearing anything new to match the reputation. Shorter experimented with grown-up fusion, and other formats, but looked to be heading for a technical knockout when
Footprints Live!
with a strong new group revisited some of his great compositions and signalled a return to the terse, phlegmatic post-bop of earlier years. All that remained then was the follow-up punch, and the saxophonist’s critical comeback would look secure.
Alegría
is it. With some reservations.

The obvious problem is that Shorter’s first all-acoustic studio album for 35 years (!) doesn’t present a consistent line-up throughout. There is such a difference between Perez’s swinging but one-dimensional playing and Mehldau’s more harmonically ambitious approach. The two pianists’ differences could have been brokered into an interesting contrast, but instead one feels the album shifting in tone and intention from track to track, which is less satisfactory. That said, the individual components are very good indeed.

The opening could hardly be more promising, with Shorter on soprano kicking into ‘Sacajawea’ with more power and commitment than has been heard from him in some time. There are older pieces in the set, and the now expected classical essay in the shape this time of Leroy Anderson’s ‘Serenata’ and Villa-Lobos’s ‘Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5’, a theme that lends itself perfectly to Shorter’s playing. ‘Angola’ and ‘Orbits’ are both familiar ideas given unfamiliar readings, the latter slowed down to the point where the line seems to break down into its components. ‘She Moves Through The Fair’ seems an odd choice, but it works well and serves as the best possible contrast to the stone groove of the opening track. It isn’t
Speak No Evil
and probably doesn’t come up to
Adam’s Apple
either, but it’s a terrific record by a modern master.

& See also
Speak No Evil
(1964; p. 313)

WYNTON MARSALIS
^&

Born 18 October 1961, New Orleans, Louisiana

Trumpet

Live At The House Of Tribes

Blue Note 77132

Marsalis; Wessell Anderson (as); Eric Lewis (p); Kengo Nakamura (b); Joe Farnsworth (d); Orlando Q. Rodriguez, Robert Rucker (perc). December 2002.

Wynton Marsalis said (1990):
‘I’ve grown up feeling not connected with my generation of young people, which makes me sad sometimes, but I think a lot of the differences and a lot of the criticisms that have come to me are based on ignorance and misunderstanding. Yes, I have a different background in music but it’s not so utterly different. We come out of the same people and culture, just different aspects of the tradition.’

In the first years of the new decade, Marsalis moved from Columbia to Blue Note, a partnership that guaranteed renewed media interest in his work. After a period in which he had grown ever more ambitious in form, creating large-scale works like
Blood On The Fields
and issuing an eight-CD live set from the Village Vanguard, it was difficult to keep Marsalis in perspective. The tired old question about whether he was ‘really’ a classical performer
who’d been positioned in jazz like a clubbable candidate in a rapidly ageing ward came back again.

At first, the new contract with Blue Note was a disappointment. On the first record Marsalis sounded as if he’d gone back several years in developmental terms, or perhaps he’s pitching his thing to what he thinks is a less sophisticated audience. Either way, it’s a mistake and
The Magic Hour
doesn’t even sit with the middle order of his Columbia albums.
House Of Tribes
, though, is a near-perfect live record, packed with atmosphere and marked by some powerful, wise playing from Wynton and a strong new band. It stands absolutely in line with the classic live recordings of Blue Note’s golden age, by Art Blakey, Kenny Dorham and others. Marsalis immediately and subtly repositions himself in a post-bop idiom by starting with ‘Green Chimneys’. It’s still recognizably himself, but the material points another way. ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’, ‘Donna Lee’ and ‘What Is This Thing Called Love?’ are all bop-inspired and Marsalis sharpens his attack to suit. The audience is much in evidence, but almost as participants rather than as a distraction, and there’s a spontaneity to the whole thing, as when Robert Rucker gets up to bash a tambourine in the second-line finale.

Here’s a man anxious to
belong
, to reinscribe himself on the history page of modern jazz. The anxiety is misplaced. Without Wynton Marsalis, modern jazz would have a very different shape and status.

& See also
J Mood
(1985; p. 496),
Standard Time: Volume 6 – Mr Jelly Lord
(1999; p. 638)

PETER KING

Born 11 August 1940, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England

Alto and soprano saxophones, clarinet

Footprints

Miles Music CD087

King; Steve Melling (p); Jeremy Brown, Arnie Somogyi (b); Stephen Keogh (d). 2002.

Saxophone collector Hartmut Geiss says:
‘At the start of the decade, Peter King changed from his Selmer Mark VI alto to a Yanagisawa A9932Z, made of solid silver and phosphor bronze. It’s a magnificent horn. I think the sound is maybe a little brighter, but I believe he is now playing with a new custom-made mouthpiece.’

King remains Britain’s most eminent keeper of the bebop alto flame. He was still a teenager when he opened at Ronnie Scott’s Club in 1959, though he shouldn’t be confused with the late Pete King who was Ronnie’s business partner in the club. Though King has continued to be associated with Charlie Parker’s style of bebop (he was even caught on YouTube playing Bird’s Grafton acrylic saxophone), he has steadily absorbed other, more recent influences, including elements of Coltrane’s harmonic thinking.

All of King’s records are worthwhile, even if it’s only for the peerless sound of his alto, but
Footprints
is a phenomenal live set, recorded at Pizza Express. There are very strong versions of the Wayne Shorter title-piece and McCoy Tyner’s ‘Search For Peace’, a fantastic final version of Victor Feldman’s ‘Joshua’ and strong originals from Melling, who’s a dark horse on the British scene. The real
tour de force
, though, is an emotive rendition of Waldron’s ‘Soul Eyes’ on which King plays one of his best recorded solos. The disc was recorded at different sessions, which explains the two bassists. Another great one from King.

GORDON BECK

Born 16 September 1936, London

Piano

Not The Last Waltz

Art Of Life 1008

Beck; Bruno Rousselet (b); Philippe Soirat (d). January & July 2003.

Singer Helen Merrill, recording with Beck at BBC’s Maida Vale studios (1992):
‘Do you people realize what you have here? Gordon Beck is the best improvising accompanist on the
planet
!’

A veteran British modernist, Beck drew attention in the Tubby Hayes group of the ’60s, as Ronnie Scott’s house pianist and as the anchor and motor force of Phil Woods’s European Rhythm Machine around the turn of the decade. Since then he has freelanced, worked as an educator and helmed occasional albums, but has hardly been garlanded with work or praise in his native country.

Beck’s early work has been belatedly rediscovered. Made in 1967,
Experiments With Pops
introduced the nascent talent of ‘Johnny’ McLaughlin, apparently a late inclusion on what otherwise was meant to be a trio date. Given the pop provenance of the material, it was a brilliant wheeze bringing him aboard. The guitarist transformed the set, adding a gear and providing the kind of forceful attack he would later demonstrate on
Extrapolation
and with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. After that came the fine
Gyroscope
, also the name of Beck’s group, but for a disturbing number of even British fans the story ends there.

Working largely abroad, like many of his most creative countrymen, Beck has continued to work in trio formats, treading a course influenced but not overdetermined by Bill Evans’s classic trios, and working as an accompanist, notably for Helen Merrill. In admiring the early discs, it’s vital not to overlook the more recent ones. Here is Beck, live and working with a French trio, and playing some of the best music of his career. The cover has a delightful monochrome of youthful waltzers at a ballroom dance display, and there is an appropriate freshness to the playing and choice of material. Beck has always valued strong jazz composition and the two Ron Carter pieces he has included here, the opening ‘Einbahnstrasse’ and the closing ‘First Trip’, are among the best things on the record, the latter a long and thoughtful exploration of Carter’s idea. ‘Miss Day’ is a Beck composition, couched in a sombre bebop idiom. ‘Not The Last Waltz’ is in three-quarter time, but taken at a furious pace that challenges the two rhythm men. They are generously featured throughout and amply repay Gordon’s confidence. ‘This Heart Of Mine’ starts some way in, presumably because of tape problems, but for the most part this is a beautifully recorded set that should strike shame into the hearts of British concert promoters and warm the hearts of those who have yet to make Gordon Beck’s acquaintance.

OLIVER LAKE
^&

Born 14 September 1942, Marianna, Arkansas

Alto and soprano saxophones, flute

Dat Love

Passin Thru 41219

Lake; Reggie Washington (b); Damon Duewhite (d); Lyndon Achee (steel d). February 2003.

Oliver Lake said (2003):
‘You get wonderful overtones when you put sax and steel pans together. They seem to surround you and carry you along.’

One of the most prominent Dolphy disciples around, Lake was exploring that area of enquiry long before anyone else, and consequently has gone deeper into it. His saxophone sound is immediately arresting, blues-tinged and original, with an urgency that stands out in almost any context. Much as, say, Roscoe Mitchell seemed to cede some personal prominence to membership of a collective, so Lake is still mainly known as a member, and often the lead voice, of the World Saxophone Quartet. His importance goes back before this to membership of the influential Black Artists Group (BAG), where he experimented alongside future WSQ member Julius Hemphill. After a period in Paris, Lake returned to the US and the quartet was launched.

In more recent years, he has experimented with various groups and forms, including a solo record, and has acknowledged his debt to Dolphy in a tribute album, but perhaps his most creative outfit is the Steel Quartet. Its first appearance on
Kinda Up
could have been more auspicious, but the basic concept was in place and Lyndon Achee is a remarkable musician. It is surprising, given the island influence in American jazz that steel pans haven’t played a more significant part in the music. Lake finds something in the sound. It frees up his harmonic thinking and creates an accompaniment so open-ended he can negotiate long chromatic drifts with ease.
Dat Love
is a consistently fascinating and absorbing record, and the concept is clinched. Opening with an arrangement of ‘Stolen Moments’ by Oliver Nelson was a masterstroke, as is the reading of Horace Silver’s ‘Senor Blues’, but he isn’t afraid to include the Stevie Wonder/Mary J. Blige song ‘Time’ as well. AkLaff gives way to the impressive Duewhite here, a less seasoned voice and a less mannered percussionist, but spot on for this material. Not easy to record this music, but they’ve got it just right: uncluttered, crisp and shimmering.

& See also
WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET, W.S.Q.
(1980; p. 456)