The Odean Pope Saxophone Choir ‒ Locked & Loaded

I don’t get over to the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center for the daily free performances as often as I should, but a few years ago I forced myself because the Odean Pope Saxophone Choir was going to be there. The Millennium attendees seem to break down into three segments: retirees, tourists, and fans of whatever music is being played that day. Although the power of the Choir seemed to drive out a few of the first two groups, the rest of us were enthralled. Nine saxophones playing intricate arrangements and soloing lustily over a wall of sound may not be for everybody but, like many of life’s joys, you have to give it a chance. The Choir finished up its set by parading off and around the stage. We all clapped and cheered as loudly as we could—it ranks way up there on my roster of all-time great live shows.

A good way to get a taste of this experience is to get hold of Locked and Loaded: Live at the Blue Note, a live show in New York. Blessed by an inimitable note from Ornette Coleman and guest stars Michael Brecker, Joe Lovano, and James Carter, this recording at least approximates the tremendous impact of this fabulous band.

Some high points: Pope’s Prince Lasha, a tribute to the great jazz flautist/saxophonist, is a real tour de force. When the Choir played it in DC, two saxophonists—Elliot Levin and (I think) Terrence Brown)—almost literally blew their brains out in a no-holds-barred barrage of energy playing. On Locked and Loaded, Michael Brecker—perhaps already suffering from the disease that would kill him—does a one-man version of the same blast of sound. As one reviewer put it, “Michael Brecker gives it everything he’s got.”

The most lyrical track on the album is John Coltrane’s Central Park West. Altoists Julian Pressley and Louis Taylor play beautifully atop the sonic cushion of the Choir.

Joe Lovano is a fine player, whose music has never quite gotten to me, but his work on Cis and Terrestrial is warm and fiery in turn—I need to listen more of his stuff.

Odean Pope is outstanding both on his Epitome, where the interplay with the Choir is exemplary, and Coltrane Time, which turns into a battle of the tenors with Michael Brecker—lots exhilarating energy here, folks.

The last track features James Carter, who burns through Pope’s Muntu Chant, egged on by the Choir. Why isn’t this guy a bigger star?

I only found a couple of tracks on YouTube, but they’re choice. Crank up your speakers for Prince Lasha and mellow out with Central Park West, and enjoy!

The Jazz Soul of Manfred Mann

I do some posting to a Best of the 60s Facebook page. Some time back, I thought to post Manfred Mann’s Pretty Flamingo, a song I always liked a lot more than Do Wah Diddy. To me, MM was one of many British invasion wannabe Beatles pop groups that stuck around for a few years, had another hit with Bob Dylan’s The Mighty Quinn, and then transmogrified into Manfred Mann’s Earth Band and hit again with Blinded by the Light. It never would have occurred to me to buy one of their albums or otherwise follow their careers. Still, I did have a sneaking affection for the catchy, slightly quirky My Little Red Book, mainly because it was on the What’s New Pussycat soundtrack (a topic for another day).

In the course of locating Pretty Flamingo on YouTube, I checked out some other MM. I was astonished to hear an instrumental featuring flute and vibes that wouldn’t have been out of place on a late night jazz station in the 60s, but a real outlier on Shindig or Ready Steady Go (for which MM wrote and performed the theme song). It piqued my interest enough to do some research, which revealed that MM had started out as a beat/R&B/jazz band a la Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames and then hit the pop jackpot. Unfortunately, when I tried to re-listen to the jazz track I’d discovered, I couldn’t remember the name of the tune, and my YouTube search skills proved unavailing. I gave up and forgot about it.

More recently, I was checking out the Cannonball Adderley Quintet’s version of Cannonball’s Sack o’ Woe.  The YouTube “recommendations” column suggested a version by none other than MM. It turned out to be a kickin’ up-tempo excursion with brief, crisp solos on alto, harmonica (!), piano, and vibes. I flashed back to my previous search and soon found the cool jazz track I’d heard in my first MM search. More exploration yielded more instrumental jazz, from organ combo funky (The Abominable Snowmann) to cool (a great flute and vibes version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, which to my ears is as good as (and I suspect based on) the Modern Jazz Quartet’s England’s Carol), to small-group arrangements of the pop tunes of the day (Satisfaction, I Got You Babe, Still I’m Sad, and a “where’s the melody” romp through My Generation) featuring Jack Bruce (bass), Henry Lowther (tpt), and Lyn Dobson (ts). MM’s regular cast of characters also demonstrate their jazz chops on these recordings, including Mike Hugg (vibes), vocalist Paul Jones (harmonica), Mike Vickers (as) and Mann himself on keyboards.

I don’t want to oversell these things—don’t throw out your old Blues Note and Prestige albums—but they are quite enjoyable, and I’m impressed that MM put  them on their albums. I wonder what influence they had on the fans who came to them via Do Wah Diddy? If you’re interested, all of these performances, including a couple not on YouTube (Milt Jackson's Spirit Feel, for one), can be found on The Soul of Mann, a mostly instrumental compilation. The exception is the oddly titled LSD, which is really a blues, another genre of which MM was fond. The album is available as a relatively reasonably priced Japanese import.

The cool flute and vibes tune I couldn’t find? It’s called Bare Hugg. Enjoy!

The Discovery of Herculaneum

In the course of the massive shifting around of seemingly every inanimate object in the house required by adding on to said house, I’ve had to move my CD collection out of the living room. The plus side was a chance to look at the many that I’ve acquired over the years but never played. I bought one of them—Orange Blossom by the band Herculaneum—several years ago in an effort to assuage my guilt about mainly listening to the music of senior citizens and dead people rather than contemporary artists ( a topic I plan to address in an upcoming post). I remembered, or thought I did, that the band was part of the Chicago free jazz scene. I do enjoy some post-Ornette music, but I’m picky. In recent years, a lot of the bands of that ilk that I’ve investigated do a lot of initial random instrumental plunking and mumbling that causes me to react as Brendan Gill’s Uncle Arthur did to Moby-Dick: “Good God, man, get on with your story!”

Happily, I didn’t have that problem with Herculaneum, which has put out five albums over the last 10 years or so. Based on what I’ve heard, they strike me as a freebop band—think the Jazz Messengers with a front line of Sonny Simmons, Roswell Rudd, and Don Cherry. Orange Blossom features solid compositions by Dylan Ryan, the band’s drummer/vibraphonist, solid arrangements using counterpoint in stimulating ways, sharp ensemble playing by Patrick Newbery, trumpet; Nick Broste, trombone; and David McDonnell, alto sax; and strong solos by all concerned. Ryan’s drumming pushes the band to hit the ground running on the first track, Bears of Illium, a pattern that persists throughout the CD. He also provides a subtle underpinning to the gorgeous (but oddly named) Fuzball in Valhalla and Cry of the Locusts.  Twin Unicorns is a particularly interesting piece, with Broste, and especially McDonnell, taking compelling solos. Newbery shines on Bears of Illium and Let There Be Neon, among others, but everyone takes care of business throughout, as does bassist Greg Danek (check out Return to the Woods.) There’s also nice guitar work by John Beard on Fuzball in Valhalla and Andra Kulans on viola on Cry of the Locusts.

Herculaneum’s last two albums, Uchu and Olives &Orchids, are available in vinyl or download (woe the poor unhip CD listener!) on Bandcamp. I’ll be buying both. To get a taste of the band, check out part of this live performance in 2012. 

In Lieu of a Blog Post...

Well, it's more of an explanation than a post. Note to self: Don't work at home and  add a two-story addition onto your house and then expect to have a lot of time to maintain your blog. I've been gone so long, I didn't know I'd actually received a comment on my Knockouts post -- sorry, Todd! Any way, I've got a plan to do a couple of new posts soon, so Don't give up on me yet.

Larry Young's Unity

When I’m in the mood to listen to music, I usually turn to my ever-growing pile of new music (I’m old fashioned enough that I’m still buying CDs). It’s often out of guilt—why buy this stuff if I’m not going to play it? This is bad, because it causes me to neglect the classics, like Larry Young’s Unity.

I’m not a Blue Note fetishist. Plenty of other labels produced (and still produce) great music. I have to admit, though that Alfred Lion maintained a pretty high standard overall. Unity is a classic example. I remembered how good it was, thanks both to the quality of the musicians but also Blue Note’s penchant for extensive rehearsals prior to making a recording. There was a lot I didn’t remember, though:

• Nat Hentoff’s liner note reminded me of how young Woody Shaw was—21 when he made this record! Not only is his trumpet playing astonishingly mature, but his compositions, particularly “Zoltan” and “The Moontrane” (now a jazz standard) are equally accomplished.
• “Zoltan” is named for Zoltan Kodaly, whose march from his Hary Janos Suite form the composition’s opening.
• Joe Henderson’s witty and apt quotations, like Charlie Parker’s Buzzy in his tenor solo on “If.” I don’t usually think of Joe as using quotations, but he does here.
• The great arrangement of “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise,” proving that the Great American Songbook is still a fine vehicle for jazz when treated imaginatively.
• The subtlety of Elvin Jones’s drumming, perhaps easier to hear in a non-Coltrane setting.

One thing I can never forget is Larry Young’s groundbreaking playing. He was a real stylist, utterly distinctive. He moved the organ from soul jazz into more adventuresome territory without losing his soul —and that goes for his later, more fusion-oriented work with Tony Williams, too.

Here’s “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise." I hope you enjoy it.

In Defense of the Knockouts

The three Doo Wop Boxes are among my most treasured musical possessions, and Billy Vera does a fantastic job of annotating all 303 classic group harmony songs. It’s always bothered me, though, that he was so negative about the Knockouts. In his notes to their one big hit, Darling Lorraine, found in Box 2, Vera calls them a “Jersey Shore bar band” (true—no insult there), but goes on to say that in their few TV appearances, they “looked kind of seedy and old”—older than what he thought were their true ages, the early thirties. Darling Lorraine, which I had forgotten about until I heard it again on Box 2, was always a favorite of mine, and I felt badly that its creators had been sort of sleazy. Most painfully, Vera suspected that the record might have been a parody that listeners took seriously—so much for my teenage taste, I supposed at the time.

Recently, though, I heard a very different song by the Knockouts, which led me to do some further research. The admirable Funky16Corners blog posted their astoundingly over-the-top version of I’ve Got My Mojo Working (or Mo Jo, as they retitled it). It was later than, and totally different from, Darling Lorraine—but I like it a lot. It was released in 1964, five years after their one big hit, so they hadn’t just faded back to the Shore afterwards.

After some rummaging around, I found a decent history of the group here. It consisted of Bobby D’Andrea, vocals; Eddie Parente, guitar; Bob Collada, Piano; and Harry Venuta, drums, all from Bayonne or North Bergen, New Jersey. The accompanying photo indicated that, while not in the first bloom of youth, they weren’t necessarily as old as Vera thought. Indeed, a news clipping reproduced on the same site claimed that they were in their early twenties when Darling Lorraine hit it big. According to the clipping, it peaked out at #46 nationally. They were a Jersey Shore band (Seaside Heights!), but also performed at venues in such NJ metropoli as Lodi and Lyndhurst. They also stuck around on the recording scene for a few years and even recorded an album—Go Ape with the Knockouts (and on the album cover, they did look older and perhaps less than prepossessing).

I’ve been exploring the Knockouts’ oeuvre: Riot in Room 3C, a twangy instrumental that originally was the A side of the surprise hit Darling Lorraine; Rich Boy, Poor Boy, a very nice doowop ballad; Please Be Mine, a mid-tempo tune; and the aforementioned Mo Jo, which shows they could do a wide range of material and had some staying power. As for the idea that Darling Lorraine might have been a parody, artists sometimes hit the mark despite themselves, although I think their performance came from the heart.

And as for staying power, as of a few years ago, Bobby D’Andrea was still going strong on the oldies circuit—and sounding pretty good! Maybe he wasn’t that old after all.

Hey, if anyone finds a copy of Go Ape with the Knockouts while crate diving in some thrift store, I’m in the market.

Charles Sullivan: Time for Re-Entry

These days, historians generally view the Great Man theory of history as a simplistic and obsolete concept, but the music world hasn’t caught up yet. Take jazz trumpet players, for example. Satchmo, Dizzy, Miles, Clifford, Lee, Freddie, and (maybe) Woody are the crème de la crème, and anyone else is an also ran, an imitator―“the poor man’s [Satchmo, Dizzy, Miles, etc.]." It’s as if there’s no way to categorize other players except as geniuses or pallid imitators. Was Wilkie Collins the poor man’s Dickens? Maybe The Moonstone has more readers these days.

This mild diatribe brings me to Re-Entry, the reissue CD of Charles Sullivan’s 1976 WhyNot LP. WhyNot was a Japanese label that recorded a number of talented musicians who weren’t among the revered few on their respective instruments. Sullivan, who also recorded as Kamau Adilifu, has played with Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, and Roy Haynes and recorded with a host of other fine players. He also has had a solid career playing for Broadway shows and other more commercial settings. With all of that, though, he’s still not well known as a first-rate, creative artist – and that’s a shame.

Re-Entry starts off furiously with the title track, and Sullivan’s solo is blazing―he uses a combination of longer flowing lines and staccato phrasing to create a showpiece of hard bop creativity. Of course, with a rhythm section of Kenny Barron on Piano, Buster Williams on bass, and Billy Hart on drums, he has colleagues who both support and augment his efforts throughout. On Body and Soul, the band uses a glowering, mysterious opening to set the mood before launching into a gorgeous rendition of this classic ballad, and Sullivan, Barron, and Williams all make it work seamlessly. Carefree is a more medium-tempo outing, in which Rene McLean’s alto complements Sullivan’s sound (hearkening back to the first paragraph, McLean often is criticized for sounding like his dad, Jackie McLean, but I really love that off-kilter tone), while Sullivan employs his mute to good effect on Cricket’s Waltz, and McLean does a nice turn on tenor. The program finishes up with Mabe’s Way―a Sullivan composition, as are all of those on the album except Body and Soul. Bonus versions of the latter and Carefree round out the program.

Now that I’ve checked out Re-Entry, I’m interested in Sullivan’s two other outings as a leader―both available (but pricey). He’s an excellent and original talent and I hope he gets to record more in the future than he has in the past. If you want to hear a sample, try this.

Hearken, Hearken to the Reed! – Jalal al-Din Rumi

Poor Herbie Mann doesn’t get much respect from the critics or the cranky old guys who post on the jazz boards. Admittedly, Herbie never seemed to meet a musical fad he didn’t like (disco!), but he did make what I think is a substantial contribution to integrating African and Middle Eastern music into jazz. The first Herbie Mann track I ever listened to was Baghdad/Asia Minor from The Common Ground: The Herbie Mann Afro-Jazz Sextet + Four Trumpets.  That album featured Nabil “Knobby” Totah, a Palestinian, on bass, and my all-time favorite Babatunde Olatunji on African percussion, along with Ray Barretto on bongos and Ray Mantilla on congas.

My favorite, though, is The Wailing Dervishes, a 1967 live date with a coterie of Middle Eastern-derived musicians like oudist Chick Ganimian, dümbek player Moulay “Ali” Hafid, and clarinetist Hacheg T. Kazarian. In addition to featuring the unique Rufus Harley, the premier jazz bagpiper, on one track, it includes an absolutely mesmerizing version of Norwegian Wood. This piece really reaches out in an almost ecstatic, Sufi-like way, trying to fulfill the verse of Rumi on the back of the LP: “Hearken to this reed forlorn/Breathing ever since ‘twas torn/From its rush bed, a strain/Of impassioned love and pain.” Mann, Roy Ayers on vibes, and Reggie Workman on bass all seem to catch the spirit on this one.  I wish we had more recordings like this one and fewer like Push Push, but give Herbie Mann full credit for pushing forward a world music ethos in jazz when it was much more uncommon than it is now.

Here's Norwegian Wood.