The Penguin Jazz Guide (91 page)

Bley’s brief association with the forward-thinking ESP yielded one classic trio and one now largely forgotten quintet date. The earlier date saw Bley recruiting two hornmen from the Sun Ra Arkestra and much of the interest of the album, which like its successor consists entirely of Carla Bley tunes, is in hearing Johnson and Allen in a small-group context. The music is fairly hard-edged and the presence of two such confrontational players (trumpeter Dewey Johnson was on Coltrane’s
Ascension
) gives the set an uncomfortably fiery complexion that tends to singe away its more subtle moments.

Closer
is still a delight nearly 50 years after first release. The key track here is ‘Ida Lupino’, which Carla’s former husband turns into a rolling, almost filmic narrative with layers of detail that belie the simple materials. Some have noted a continuing cross-fertilization of ideas with Ornette Coleman on these tracks; his ‘Crossroads’ was on the original side two, just ahead of Annette Peacock’s ‘Cartoon’. That’s harder to hear if you aren’t aware of the association, but the staccato rhythms and bitten-off melodic ideas do point in that direction. It’s a curious record by more recent standards, with only two out of ten tracks exceeding three minutes in length and none over four. But contained within it, almost literally, is the musical language Bley was to tease out over the next four decades.

& See also
Axis
(1977; p. 439),
Not Two, Not One
(1998; p. 624)

MILES DAVIS
^&

Born 26 May 1926, Alton, Illinois; died 28 September 1991, Santa Monica, California

Trumpet, flugelhorn, organ

The Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel

Columbia CXK 66955 7CD

Davis; Wayne Shorter (ts); Herbie Hancock (p); Ron Carter (b); Tony Williams (d). December 1965.

Miles’s biographer Ian Carr said (1990):
‘Miles had been in hospital through the late spring and summer, having a hip joint replaced. There were rumours of other, more serious problems. He still sounds frail, but there’s an indomitable quality to the playing as well.’

The Rosetta Stone of modern jazz: a monumental document written in five subtly and sometimes starkly different dialects but within which much of the music of the post-bop period has been defined and demarcated. When future histories of the music are written – and it would be possible to write a convincing version of the story from 1945 to 1990 merely by reference to Miles’s part in it – these sessions will be adduced as a turning-point. Arguably Miles’s best-ever group – responsible for
E.S.P.
in January 1965,
Miles Smiles
,
Sorcerer
,
Nefertiti
subsequently – working its way out of one phase and into another in which time and harmony, melody and dynamics, were radically rethought. The improvisations here would have been inconceivable a mere couple of years earlier; they don’t so much float on the chords as react against them like phosphorus. Three years later, they fed directly into Miles’s electric revolution.

To set the time and place, these were recorded (officially, by Columbia engineers) at the Plugged Nickel Club in Chicago. Though the Blackhawk sessions are better than most, the registration here is superb, not much different from what one would hope for in a studio. At first glance, one might wonder whether so repetitive a documentation would be worth either the cash or the patience, particularly when there is no new material on show.
The short answer is an emphatic yes and unambiguously so, because here it is possible to observe at the closest quarters Miles and his musicians working through their ideas set by set in ways that make the named material, the songs, more or less irrelevant. Ironically, the fact that these are mostly standards and repertory pieces heightens the originality of approach. Even when it is clear he is working from ‘Stella By Starlight’ or ‘My Funny Valentine’, Miles is moving out into areas of harmonic/melodic invention and performance dynamics which were unprecedented in the music, and doing so within the concentrated span of two nights at the club.

On the two original LPs, Columbia had forgivably presumed to deliver up the ‘best’ of the sessions. Carr’s broadcast comment came in advance of the complete box, but the real step forward came when the music was mastered for CD and it became possible to hear Carter, who’d been away from the group for a time in mid-1965, with sufficient clarity to judge his central role in this group. His role is absolutely crucial and there are times when one can almost visualize Miles flicking from one solid outcrop to another like a caddis fly. Hancock occasionally sounds diffident and detached, and he is the only one of the group who resorts to repeated licks as the sets progress. He may have been tired, but he may also, as McCoy Tyner was to do at almost exactly the same time, have realized that he was to some extent external to the real drama of this extraordinary music.

This was the second lengthy club documentation Columbia had authorized. The 1961 Blackhawk recordings have never been as much admired, but they also benefited from fuller coverage, and should anyone want to take a quick gauge of Miles’s evolution through the early ’60s, the respective performances of that bop staple ‘Oleo’ should be enough to confirm how differently he approached the music in 1965, still several years ahead of his electric dismantlement of jazz grammar.

& See also
The Complete Birth Of The Cool
(1948–1950; p. 121),
Miles Ahead
(1957; p. 208),
Kind Of Blue
(1951; p. 232),
In A Silent Way
(1969; p. 361),
Agharta
(1975; p. 420)

Part 2:
1966–1970

ALBERT AYLER
^&

Born 13 July 1936, Cleveland, Ohio; died between 5 and 25 November 1970, New York City

Tenor, alto and soprano saxophones

Live In Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings

Impulse! IMP 12732 2 CD

Ayler; Donald Ayler (t); George Steele (tb); Michel Sampson (vn); Joel Freedman (clo); William Folwell, Henry Grimes, Alan Silva (b); Beaver Harris, Sunny Murray (d). March 1965–February 1967.

Sunny Murray said (1990):
‘Albert took some of those melodies from Swedish folk music while he was over there. Even the famous things like “Ghosts”! He was a sweet guy, nice-looking in his leather suits and leather overcoat, never anything else, and a bit of a playboy. He wanted to be a soul musician, not something in the avant-garde.’

Ayler’s music did not so much evolve as steadily expose different facets of itself. Towards the end of his life, he was the object of much dismissive criticism from jazz writers for having seemingly turned away from jazz proper and towards a brand of raw R&B, as on his
New Grass
and
Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe.
Certainly, this music had a different
surface texture to that of
Spiritual Unity
or
Bells
, but it is recognizably the same musician who is involved and there is no inconsistency in the music either. In early 1965, Ayler began recording with a string-player, using Michael Sampson subsequently on violin and Joel Freedman on cello. He would later exploit another sound unfamiliar in jazz by using Call Cobbs on harpsichord. String instruments had been part of proto-jazz ensembles in the earliest days and so there was nothing unusual or alien about the practice and the distinctive tremolo of violin or cello became an important element in Ayler’s work.

Live material from the new group recorded in Lörrach and Paris is available on a fine hatOLOGY issue. Whatever technical and aesthetic shortcomings these may have had (there is a nihilistic, fragmentary quality to the latter), the Village Theater and Village Vanguard sessions are hugely affirmative and satisfyingly complete without losing a jot of Ayler’s angry and premonitory force. These are essential postwar jazz recordings, and they include some of Ayler’s best playing on both alto (‘For John Coltrane’) and tenor (the apocalyptic ‘Truth Is Marching In’). The second bass, in addition to either violin or cello, actually sharpens the sound considerably, producing a rock-solid foundation for Ayler’s raw witness. There are distinctly ‘Scotch’ elements to the music, drones, snaps and quarter-tone movements, often set to a rhythm that resembles a dragged-out strathspey.

This reissue supersedes
In Greenwich Village
and
The Village Concerts
without adding very much of significance. There is a single track (‘Holy Ghost’) from March 1965, originally issued on the Impulse! compilation
The New Wave In Jazz
. One other track, ‘Universal Thoughts’, is incomplete, presumably because the tape ran out. However, having these performances together on one set is of value. John Coltrane was present, ailing and tired, when ‘Truth Is Marching In’ and ‘Our Prayer’ were recorded at the Village Vanguard. John was to die in the summer of the following year, but his spirit is everywhere here, even though Ayler was firmly in command of his own style and approach. These are Don Ayler’s finest moments. Always an approximate technician, but driven by loyalty to his brother, he produces a stream of pure sound which is unique in jazz – not even Ornette Coleman on brass sounds so alien – and still hasn’t been fully acknowledged. Don Ayler’s personal tragedy may even have been deeper than his brother’s, certainly more protracted.

& See also
Spiritual Unity
(1964; p. 305)

THE JAZZ CRUSADERS

Formed 1960; previously The Swingsters and Modern Jazz Sextet, subsequently The Crusaders

Group

Live At The Lighthouse ’66

Pacific Jazz 605435

Wayne Henderson (tb); Wilton Felder (ts); Joe Sample (ky); Leroy Vinnegar (b); Stix Hooper (d). January 1966.

Joe Sample said (2003):
‘What we do together as The Crusaders is unique to that group. We never imitated anyone and what we each do on our own has nothing to do with that sound and that philosophy. I’m very clear about that. We marched to our own tune, always, and if the industry said “Everyone jump this way”, we made sure to jump
that
way.’

The familiar line-up – Henderson, Felder, Sample, Hooper – remained in place from the start, despite individual projects, falling-outs and reshuffles. The Crusaders offer a solidly funky combo music which might almost have been programmed by a computer. It hinges on Sample’s bar-room piano, Felder and Henderson’s uncomplicated horn-lines, and Hooper’s accurate but curiously undynamic drumming. The bass position was a revolving door. The
Crusaders never delivered less and seldom any more, but it has proved to be a highly durable formula and even the early records are still listenable today.

The live date from Hermosa Beach in 1966 offers what is presumably a pretty faithful version of what the band sounded like in concert around this time: slick, capable and unshakeably jazz-centred, doing versions of ‘Round Midnight’, Trane’s ‘Some Other Blues’, ‘Milestones’ and ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’, alongside the originals. These include Sample’s ‘Blues Up Tight’, Felder’s ‘Miss It’, Henderson’s ‘Scratch’ and Vinnegar’s rootsier ‘Doin’ That Thing’. Arguably, the later stuff for Motown and MCA was more original, blending soul, funk and R&B elements into a jazz mix that remains absolutely unique, but those records suffer from the over-production of the time; by contrast, even this live date has worn better.

CHARLES LLOYD
^&

Born 15 March 1938, Memphis, Tennessee

Tenor saxophone, flute

Dream Weaver

Collectables COL 6361

Lloyd; Keith Jarrett (b); Cecil McBee (b); Jack DeJohnette (d). March 1966.

Charles Lloyd says:
‘I knew that it had been a favourite of the Grateful Dead, and they acknowledged to me that listening to it changed the way they approached performances, opening up the possibility of improvising. A few years ago, I ran into David Crosby at my favourite Mexican food restaurant, and he told me that when
Dream Weaver
came out, they used to walk around with it under their arm so they could share it with others.’

Charles Lloyd is proof that there
are
second acts in American lives. Something of a jazz champion in the rock era, he had an appeal for young white audiences who found even electric Miles too remote. It is perhaps too easy to exaggerate the differences between ‘early’ and ‘later’, the hippy crossover star who mounted the rock zenith and the Coltrane-influenced mystic of the last two decades. In reality, the Lloyd of 1965 was every bit as thoughtful and spiritually inclined as the older man, and even when his music seems most ethereal and otherworldly, Lloyd has never lost a natural melodic gift. He’d played with Gerald Wilson, Chico Hamilton and Cannonball Adderley before forming the quartet that brought him stardom.

Even without benefit of hindsight, the Lloyd quartet was pretty exceptional. In 1967, Jarrett and DeJohnette were bursting with promise. The pianist’s work here is as bold and ‘outside’ as it was ever to be again. Lloyd’s tenor sound is rich and accurate, but with a liquid quality that also emerges from his fine flute work.
Dream Weaver
is marked by some bold writing – ‘Dream Weaver’, ‘Sombrero Sam’ – and fantastic group interplay. ‘Autumn Sequence’, which incorporated ‘Autumn Leaves’, is a wonderfully open-ended suite, with some notably dark and shadowy music even in the blissful sunshine, but it’s ‘Dream Weaver’, another open sequence, that really shows off the group’s brilliant time sense and open harmonics. The record was made and released just before the group set off for Europe and it’s fair to say that world touring (including the Soviet Union) and the live records that followed (
In Europe, Love-In, Forest Flower, Journey Within
) have tended to diminish its impact and quality.