Black Saint/Soul Note Essentials

Introduction by Kevin Whitehead
In the 1970s, when major American labels drifted away from jazz, independents came to the rescue, and none more than Italy’s indispensable Black Saint and Soul Note, guided by producer Giovanni Bonandrini. Even after the majors came back in the ’80s, Black Saint was the Down Beat critics’ top label six years running. The twin imprints extensively documented work by such luminaries as the ROVA and World Saxophone Quartets, David Murray, Julius Hemphill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton and Bill Dixon. They featured Stateside mavericks (John Carter, Ran Blake, Henry Threadgill), venerable veterans (Arnett Cobb, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Andrew Hill), new wave New Yorkers (Dave Douglas, Tim Berne, String Trio of New York), Asian Americans (Fred Ho, Jon Jang, Glenn Horiuchi), Americans in Europe (Art Farmer, Steve Lacy, Mal Waldron) and the cream of Italy’s own (trumpeter Enrico Rava, composer Giorgio Gaslini, bass clarinetist Gianluigi Trovesi). Black Saint/Soul Note caught the whole panorama of modern jazz, usually in the studio, and scrupulously well recorded — making them two of the truly essential labels of the last 30 years.

BLACK SAINT ESSENTIALS
- Old And New Dreams by Don Cherry|Dewey Redman|Charlie Haden|Eddie Blackwell
  
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  These four alums of groups led by Ornette Coleman got together to explore the sound and repertoire that their mentor had largely given up when they cut this record back in 1976. They were so pleased with the experience they adopted the album title for the group name and went on to make several for albums over the next decade or so. This brilliant debut made clear that the approach was as vital and potent as ever. Although the opening track "Handwoven" is the only Coleman tune included here, the original pieces by Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, and Charlie Haden were all composed and performed in the spirit of the saxophonist’s classic quartet.
  
  Redman’s playing always reflected a more conventional harmonic sensibility, so Old and New Dreams doesn’t sound quite as freewheeling as its model, but there’s no missing the sublime interplay, flashes of collective improvisation and unabashed melodic ebullience. Despite the inspiration, however, there’s no doubt that this quartet’s stands on its own merits, from the singular way Blackwell could breakdown a swing pattern as productive jabs at the frontline improvisers to Cherry’s magical yet deeply human lines to the distinctive musette playing Redman drops on the title track. An underrated classic.
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- Dauwhe by John Carter
  
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  As John Carter’s Dauwhe opens with Luis Peralta’s waterphone, Charles Owens’s furtive soprano saxophone and William Jeffrey’s flickering percussion, the listener is instantaneously transported to another world: tribal Africa, to be precise. A gorgeous, mysterious theme slowly uncurls on clarinet, bass flute, tuba and bass, then turns sunny with a switch to standard flute and the addition of muted cornet. Halfway through, the music springs to life; in a signature Carter device, wind lines stretch at length across the rhythm section’s percolating drive.
  
  The album, issued in 1982, marked a stunning breakthrough for Carter, a Texas-born associate of Ornette Coleman. Working primarily as an alto saxophonist when he moved to Los Angeles in the early ’60s, Carter and cornetist Bobby Bradford issued a series of albums strongly redolent of Coleman’s freebop style.
  
  But Carter, who devoted himself exclusively to clarinet from 1974 onward, had a more expansive vision in mind. Much of his work in the ’80s was devoted to the creation of “Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music,” an astonishing five-part epic tracing the history of black American music. Dauwhe, the opening chapter, conjured African ancestry without any hint of self-conscious exoticism.
  
  Carter made the later episodes of his saga with an all-star band in New York. But this sensually alluring opening chapter, recorded with longtime L.A. associates like flutist James Newton and tuba player Red Callendar, is not to be overlooked.
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- Nostalgia In Times Square by Jemeel Moondoc Quintet
  
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  Saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc has been one of the more mercurial figures on the New York free jazz scene since moving to the city from his native Chicago in the early '70s. Nostalgia in Times Square is one of his most peculiar yet compelling efforts, arriving just prior to a decade-long retirement from the scene when he began working as an architect’s assistant — he returned to playing live in the mid-'90s. After leading edgy groups like Muntu (with trumpeter Roy Campbell) and his large ensemble Jus Grew Orchestra, this quintet outing came as a move inside the tradition, yet the line-up guaranteed nothing here would sound predictable, including Moondoc’s notoriously slippery intonation.
  
  Flanked by bassist William Parker, legendary drummer Denis Charles, former Roland Kirk pianist Rahn Burton and Ornette Coleman guitarist Bern Nix, Moondoc applies his idiosyncratic phrasing, which shoots straight from the blues to outer space, to hard-swinging arrangements for a delicious tension. With Nix embracing Coleman’s harmonic freedom and Moondoc displaying a deliberate roughness the music can challenge sticklers for perfect intonation, but that tartness is the source of much of the off-kilter pleasure. The album’s highlight is the title track, an ebullient reading of the bluesy Charles Mingus obscurity, but Moondoc’s originals are terrific, too, simultaneously embracing and tweaking tradition.
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- Colours by Sam Rivers Winds Of Manhattan
  
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  Sam Rivers, the octogenarian multi-instrumentalist and composer, has always been just outside the kind of mainstream attention that would have made him a jazz superstar. He played tenor in the Miles Davis quintet, but managed to officially only record on one album. He worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Cecil Taylor and McCoy Tyner, but seldom showed up on their recordings. With his late wife Beatrice (for whom one of jazz’s best compositions was named), Rivers opened Studio Rivbea in Manhattan in the early 1970s, and served as a mentor to generations of younger musicians. Relocated to Orlando, Florida, since 1990, Rivers continues to compose, arrange and perform.
  
  Colours, recorded in Milan in 1982 with his group Winds of Manhattan, is demanding, occasionally discordant, sometimes dense, sometimes austere and rhythmically idiosyncratic. There is simply no “easy” way to listen to it. This is jazz meticulously arranged for an ensemble with no drummer, no bassist, no brass and no keyboard or guitar player. The entire sonic range consists of eleven saxophones and/or flutes.
  
  “Lilacs” starts with everyone playing the theme in unison. It sounds like a bop chart, but without a rhythm section, the piece gets totally recast. Rivers burns on tenor as the band vamps behind him. The title track presents a slowly shifting melodic line, while long-tone chords hold the harmony in suspension. “Spiral” has a twisting line, one repeated phrase chasing the previous one. It’s busy, but every line is lucid. Double solos run through the piece. They’re tough to separate, but with players like Steve Coleman and Bobby Watson, all are good. “Matrix” alternates staccato bursts — baritones with baritones, sopranos with sopranos, tenors with tenors — with rich harmonic tapestry. Rivers brings out his distinctive flute playing for “Revival.” “Blossom" ends the album on an ambitious note. Without solos, lengthy and challenging, it features a rush of flutes, rhythmically restless unison phrases and the intriguing use of counterpoint. It is a most impressive piece of composing and arranging.
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- - The New Village On The Left
    
    by Marcello Melis
  - Trickles
    
    by Steve Lacy With Roswell Rudd
  - Blu Blu Blu
    
    by Muhal Richard Abrams
  - Revue
    
    by World Saxophone Quartet
NEW YORK INNOVATORS
- Etudes by Charlie Haden with Paul Motian, Geri Allen
  
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  Kudos to pianist Geri Allen, who had just turned 30 and had two albums released under her own name when the legendary rhythm section of Haden and Motian, the backbone of Keith Jarrett’s best ensemble and individually crucial to landmark records by Ornette Coleman (Haden) and Bill Evans (Motian), invited her to be part of their intimate trio in 1987. The wisdom of that decision is immediately apparent on a version of Ornette’s “Lonely Woman” that by itself justifies the recording. With exquisite restraint, Allen sketches some of the contours of the normally horn-driven melody, so that even industrious bass and drums conveys a sense of floating activity or suspended animation best appreciated by those who know the familiar tune. Another standout is Haden’s “Silence,” which has the cameo effect of Allen tapping out the beats while Haden bass unveils the theme.
  
  Motian’s timbral precision is especially beneficial in this relatively delicate setting. The heat he generates is like the campfire that browns but never inflames the marshmallow, even on a track like his “Fiasco,” which has a hectoring, agitated quality. Set between “Sandino,” one of Haden’s broad, flat themes, and gently vamping miniature, “Etude,” you get sucked into listening so carefully that the boppish “Blues In Motion” becomes a burst of fresh air. Finally, the record’s second cover, Herbie Nichols’ “Shuffle Montgomery,” is worthy of note for the way it suits Allen’s aggressive and yet evasive piano style, and for the peppy New Orleans march time that Motian adds at the finish.
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- Village Rhythm by Joe Lovano
  
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  This 1988 date captures Lovano at a pivotal point in his career. After years of big-band dues-paying and ongoing small ensemble sideman stints, Village Rhythm marked just his third recording as a leader, and the first one defined by his compositions (the only non-original among the ten tunes is Mingus's "Duke Ellington's Sounds of Love"). His father, tenor player "Big T" Lovano, had recently passed (eulogized twice on "T Was To Me"), and the more innovative artistic themes that characterized his Blue Note discs of the '90s were on the horizon.
  
  In this context, Village Rhythm is both a capstone of Lovano's proletarian past and a harbinger of his creatively and commercially regal future. As with his work on drummer Paul Motian's albums of the same period, it announces him as a thinking man's hard bopper. The most immediately attractive songs here — the title track, "Dewey Said," "Sleepy Giant" — would slide easily into the catalog of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Except instead of the kinetic, linear drive of Blakey, Lovano has Motian, a more subtle shaman, parsing the beats. And for the trumpet contributions to what would usually be bright and brisk horn arrangements, Lovano deploys the occasionally elliptical and bittersweet Tom Harrell. On the Mingus cover, Lovano captures the chromatic fragrance of the piece and uses Kenny Werner's harsh piano tones to accentuate the dynamic texture. Whether he's flitting on notes for "Bliss of Springtimes Gone By," buffing up the ballad "Chelsea Rendez-Vous," or flying through the changes on "Sleepy Giant" (check his exchanges with Motian at the end), the depth of Lovano's technique probably undersells his sense of adventure. As considerable as his reach may be, it never exceeds his grasp.
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- - Wooferlo
    
    by Bassdrumbone
  - Parallel Worlds
    
    by Dave Douglas
  - We Refuse To Be Used And Abused
    
    by Fred Houn
  - Force Green
    
    by Mark Dresser
- - Mutant Variations
    
    by Tim Berne
  - Martian Heartache
    
    by Tom Varner
  - The 5th Power
    
    by Lester Bowie
  - Expandable Language
    
    by Oliver Lake
MODERN PIANO MASTERS
- Olu Iwa by Cecil Taylor
  
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  For many avant-garde jazz enthusiasts, the foremost attraction of Cecil Taylor’s Olu Iwa, taped live in Berlin in 1986, is the presence of ferocious German saxophone improviser Peter Brötzmann. Yet anyone who checks in for that reason alone could be disappointed: Devotees of both players have had trouble discerning Brötzmann’s presence in the 48 minute opening track, “B Ee Ba Nganga Ban’a Eee!”
  
  The blistering onslaught that starts 27 minutes into the track bears Brötzmann’s signature sandpaper tone. But two saxophonists are credited — Frank Wright, an Albert Ayler acolyte and no shrinking violet, is the other, and nowhere are the two heard together. The drooping sobs that begin at minute 34, opposite trombonist Earl McIntyre’s sputtering and the pianist’s glossolalia poetry, must surely be Wright’s.
  
  That mystery aside, there are two key reasons to check out Olu Iwa. The first is Taylor’s magisterial pacing during a performance filled with unusually contemplative passages, not least the haunting theme that opens “B Ee Ba Nganga Ban’a Eee!” (One possible explanation: This was Taylor’s first unit without his longtime musical soul mate and foil, alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, who would die of lung cancer just over a month later.)
  
  The other is the sublime rhythm section of bassist William Parker, percussionist Thurman Barker and — in his sole appearance on record with Taylor — mercurial Chicago drummer Steve McCall. Sans the horn players, the quartet shines at length in the even more intense “Olu Iwa (Lord of Character),” recorded the previous day.
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- - For Olim
    
    by Cecil Taylor
  - The Sixth Sense
    
    by Don Pullen
  - To Them to Us
    
    by Jaki Byard
  - Suffield Gothic
    
    by Ran Blake with Houston Person
THE AMAZING ANDREW HILL
- Shades by Andrew Hill Trio with Quartet
  
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  Andrew Hill's most acclaimed albums have him leading mid-sized groups — not surprisingly, since the pianist-composer has a gift for complex, oddly hummable melodies meant to be articulated and debated by a family of horns. That said, his small-group outings are well worth a listen or sixty, this '87 set particularly.
  
  Hill's famously cerebral music can be overly dry and cool (then again, sometimes these qualities are part of its power). Not so Shades, which is certainly cerebral, but also warm, swinging and open-hearted — "Tripping" even stumbles into melodrama. Much of the warmth comes from tenorman Clifford Jordan who, like Hill, is a Chicagoan, with a Sears Tower-sized tone and adventurous blues feel to prove it. Jordan is given extra room, which he fills ably, on the somewhat gutty "Domani" and the romantic "La Verne," but he's great throughout. With former Thelonious Monk sideman Ben Riley drumming, Hill turns in three Monk-inspired, album-highlighting originals, finding just the right herky-jerky rhythms and pointy melodies without sinking to pastiche. "Ball Square," later reprised on Hill's welcome comeback, 2000's Dusk, must be one of the best Monk tunes not written by Monk, and on this version bassist Rufus Reid's inspired bowing brings the 6/8-time bridge to strange, ethereal-burlesque heights.
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- - Faces Of Hope
    
    by Andrew Hill
  - Verona Rag
    
    by Andrew Hill
  - Strange Serenade
    
    by Andrew Hill Trio
THEY ALL MOVED TO EUROPE
- The Seagulls Of Kristiansund by Mal Waldron Quintet
  
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  The late pianist Mal Waldron was unlike anyone else jazz has produced. During his lengthy career he recorded with John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Steve Lacy, Eric Dolphy, Jackie McLean and countless other innovators. He was successful almost from the start, and his playing never fell out of favor. Yet Waldron was a technically limited pianist who worked within an attenuated framework. What was it about him that drew fellow musicians and devoted followers? The Seagulls of Kristiansund-Live goes a long way toward providing answers.
  
  For one thing, Waldron wrote memorable tunes (including the jazz staple "Soul Eyes") that provided the kinds of structures that improvisers could hang their hats on. He was also a superb band pianist with an unerring gift for feeding the frontline players prompts that would steer them to their best solos. The Seagulls of Kristiansund, recorded at the Village Vanguard in 1986, presents a particularly strong roster. Longtime Monk stalwart Charlie Rouse plays tenor and Woody Shaw is on trumpet. The stellar bassist Reggie Workman and drumming master Ed Blackwell complete the rhythm section. There are three lengthy Waldron tunes. "Snakeout," which opens things up, boasts a sinewy, descending pentatonic line that gives everyone plenty of playing space to stretch out. Waldron, Workman and Blackwell clamp down like pit bulls on the pulse and changes, hammering out insistent cues to which Rouse and Shaw respond with fiery solos. "Judy" is a quasi-bop tune made different by the kind of emphatic chord placement that only Mal Waldron could provide. There’s tough-minded playing by all involved. "The Seagulls of Kristiansund" is simplicity itself: a stock-still theme is followed by a two chord 6/8 pendulum for nearly a half hour. Deeply focused, nothing exists but the gentle rocking of the rhythm section, entirely patient, entirely steady, entirely alert. One by one, Rouse, Shaw, Waldron and the marvelous Workman take careful, delicate solos. Every note counts. Every moment counts.
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- - The Window
    
    by Steve Lacy Trio
  - Mirage
    
    by Art Farmer Quintet
  - Our Collines's A Treasure
    
    by Mal Waldron Trio
  - Bluesine
    
    by Martial Solal
IN THE ILLUSTRIOUS TRADITION OF...
- - Locomotive
    
    by Buell Neidlinger's String Jazz
  - The Sun Died
    
    by Ellery Eskelin
  - Change Of Season
    
    by Mengelberg with Lewis, Lacy, Gorter, Bennink
  - Favorite Street
    
    by ROVA
GREAT JAZZ DRUMMING
- The Story Of Maryam by Paul Motian Quintet
  
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  Anyone who knows Paul Motian's work in the landmark Bill Evans Trio of the early '60s should have no trouble imagining that the Philadelphia-born drummer — whose work with Evans and bassist Scott LaFaro radically re-imagined the trio format as a democracy of equals — would bring a similarly egalitarian sense to his own bands. Even more than in his efforts with Evans (and subsequently with Keith Jarrett), in his solo work Motian creates propulsion not through muscular drive and repetition, but through a delicate ebb and flow of density, applied with the most sensitive of touches.
  
  While he had recorded under his own name since 1972, it was Motian's trio and quintet dates of the '80s, starting with The Story of Maryam, that he emerged as a truly compelling bandleader and composer. Four-fifths of the quintet — tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Ed Schuller — had come together on Motian's previous album, Psalm.
  
  With the addition of a second tenor player, Jim Pepper, Motian struck a balance that suited his style ideally: Lovano extended the lineage of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, while Pepper tapped into the free-jazz energy of players like Pharoah Sanders. The protean Frisell slips between foreground, background and atmosphere with chameleonic ease, and Schuller provides a steady anchor. Factor in two of Motian's most enduring charts ("The Owl of Cranston" and "Trieste"), and the result is an album for the ages.
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- - Collage
    
    by M'boom
  - One Time Out
    
    by Paul Motian Trio
  - That's Nice
    
    by The Barry Altschul Quartet with Quintet
  - The Enchanted Messenger
    
    by Tony Oxley Celebration Orchestra
THE IMPECCABLE DAVID MURRAY
- Ming by David Murray
  
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  Bop, free, funk and world music hybrids are all under the command of tenor saxophonist/bass clarinetist David Murray, the rightful heir to Eric Dolphy's crown of thorns. Murray’s first masterpiece gets off to a blazing start with “The Fast Life,” which glides and collides with a bravura, glissando panache, noisy and frenetic but with joyful purpose, like a game of Red Rover on roller skates. “The Hill” is cleaved in two: Wilbur Morris’s bowed bass personifies the blues lament of the climb; then the five-horn gaggle let loose for a celebratory pile-on during the joyful spree down the back side. “Ming,” an homage to Murray’s wife, is a gorgeous, sonorous ballad that faithfully sounds like an incredibly smart and complicated 25-year old guy using elements of Ellington’s “Melancholia” to announce ecstatic surrender to the love of his life. “Jasvan” is a cantering waltz stacked with brisk but substantial solos from George Lewis (trombone), Murray (on bass clarinet here), Butch Morris (cornet), Henry Threadgill (alto sax), Olu Dara (trumpet), Anthony Davis (piano) and Wilbur Morris (bass), yet somehow it is the late, great drummer Steve McCall who steals the show. “Dewey’s Circle” concludes the set with infectious mirth, a holy alliance of New Orleans and Kansas City-style sass and erudite blues toastmastery. All five songs are by Murray, who expertly synthesizes and satisfies the often contradictory demands of the cerebral cortex and the tapping toe.
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- - Shakill's Warrior
    
    by David Murray
  - The Healers
    
    by David Murray
  - Ballads for Bass Clarinet
    
    by David Murray
  - Special Quartet
    
    by David Murray
THE HOME FRONT: THE ITALIANS
- - Flux And Change
    
    by Enrico Pieranunzi with Paul Motian
  - From G To G
    
    by Gianluigi Trovesi Octet
  - Ayler's Wings
    
    by Giorgio Gaslini
  - Somebody Special
    
    by Tiziana Ghiglioni

Black Saint/Soul Note Essentials

BLACK SAINT ESSENTIALS

NEW YORK INNOVATORS

MODERN PIANO MASTERS

THE AMAZING ANDREW HILL

THEY ALL MOVED TO EUROPE

IN THE ILLUSTRIOUS TRADITION OF...

GREAT JAZZ DRUMMING

THE IMPECCABLE DAVID MURRAY

THE HOME FRONT: THE ITALIANS

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