The Sonny Rollins Conundrum(s)

I’ve attended two Sonny Rollins concerts at the Kennedy Center during the last year and a half, which gives me at least some ability to discuss those vexed questions: How good is his band and why is he notoriously inconsistent in his live appearances?

I think these problems are interrelated. All of the band members are excellent players. During the second half of the earlier concert, in spring 2008, Clifton Anderson took several excellent extended trombone solos, as did Bobby Broom on guitar. Bob Cranshaw is a strong bassist, and the percussionists and drummers (different at each concert) were most impressive.

The problem as I see it, is that the band lacks cohesion overall because everything hinges on Sonny. In the first concert, he played well but, especially after the intermission, seemed to recede into the background. The other musicians took up the slack via the aforementioned extended solos, which were individually accomplished but more or less strung together rather than parts of a whole.

In the concert in December 2009, Sonny came out and blew us away on the first tune. He then grabbed the mic, talked about visiting Annapolis when he was a kid, reminisced, joked, and generally seemed to be having a good time. That’s the way it went for the remainder of the night. This time it was the band that receded before a force of nature. To the extent that they played, they played well, but Sonny was overwhelmingly dominant, soloing aggressively, trading fours with Cranshaw, even “singing” a bit on his tribute, “J. J. Johnson”. It was a thrill to hear how Sonny can still reach down and play chorus after blistering chorus, seemingly a repository of an endless stream of ideas and energy.

So for the Sonny Rollins band, it’s feast or famine. Play a lot when Sonny isn’t out front and back off when he’s on – and maybe there is no middle ground. As Whitney Balliett once said about the older Roy Eldridge, his band acts as a buoy when he’s off and as ballast when he’s on. As to why – would a more cohesive and challenging band get more out of him? For whatever reason, he doesn’t seem interested in finding out, and that’s his prerogative.

George Wein and Jazz

I’ve been reading Myself among Others: Life in Music by George Wein with Nate Chinen. It’s an engrossing read about the business side of jazz over the last 60 years, told by the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, the New Orleans Jazz and heritage Festival, and many others. Wein has had his fair share of criticism for exploiting musicians and compromising the integrity of his productions by the inclusion of various crossover artists but, as someone who works in the cost-recovery publishing racket, I have some sympathy. Authors are sometimes as temperamental as musicians, although I haven’t yet run across a Miles or Mingus, so I do have some understanding for Wein in that area. Also, what is commercially viable is not always the acme of artistic perfection. I can see that an hour-long concert by Cecil Taylor is a harder sell than one by Dizzy Gillespie. Kenny G, though? – really, George!

Compared to characters like Louis Armstrong’s longtime manager Joe Glaser, Wein comes off pretty well. As a musician himself, as a man who married interracially when such a thing was rare indeed, and above all as someone who clearly loves the music and respects the artists, Wein strikes me as a person for whom musicians could have respect and affection even though he was the Boss, his own version of things aside. After all of these years, one would expect the book to have some grat stories, and it does. The vignette of Charlie Parker soloing on Royal Garden Blues in a pre-bop style on a stage full of swing-era musicians and playing so much that Vic Dickenson almost dropped his trombone – that in itself made Myself Among Others a fascinating read. Also, Nate Chinen, now with the New York Times, did a fine job of working with Wein to craft a book that holds up well over its 500+ pages. (I would say, thiough, that some background in the music helps.)

In 2010, Wein is still producing jazz festivals at age 84 and, according to the Times just a week or so ago, often hangs out in small clubs scouting the talent. Let’s hope he continues to do so for many more years.

Joe Lee Wilson: Livin' High off Nickels and Dimes

I don’t remember exactly where or when I picked up Joe Lee Wilson’s Livin’ High off Nickels and Dimes. It was sometime in the mid- to later 70’s, I’m sure. I knew about Wilson from reading about his involvement in the New York loft jazz scene and his Ladies’ Fort on Bond Street. Vocalists weren’t too prominent on the free jazz scene, so I suppose I was curious about how he fit in.

The first track, “The Theme/Aquarian Melody,” was a revelation. Wilson projects tremendous gusto as he shouts out the very of-their-time lyrics. I was much taken with the line “I must be free/we must be free.” The album was recorded in 1972, early enough in the Me Decade for those sentiments to still have some currency. Livin’ High off Nickels and Dimes wasn’t released until 1974, and by the time I was listening to it, the lyrics were poignant – it was great to hear someone talking about individual and collective freedom as a battle cry, but the war was over in more ways than one. Wilson gives it everything he’s got – at the end of the track, you can hear him go “Whew!”

The other tracks were just as good. Jazz Ain’t Nothin’ but Soul” was a big indie hit in NYC when the album came out, although according to the label’s co-founder, Oblivion Records didn’t have the wherewithal or experience to handle it – the small label record biz never changes. “It’s You or No One” is a beautiful ballad that shows Wilson’s roots in the Billy Eckstine/Earl Coleman/Johnny Hartman tradition of big-voiced baritones. “You Make Me Want to Dance” is a great high-energy whew-inducing closer. Horace Silver’s “Strollin’” and a heartfelt “God Bless the Child” round out the program. Sidemen Ray McKinley (piano), Bob Ralston (tenor), Stafford James (bass), and Napoleon Revels (drums) lend solid support, but it's Joe Lee's show.

My overall view of Livin’ High off Nickels and Dimes is that Wilson, with his terrific range and ability to imbue his singing with such passion and verve, was trying – and in my opinion succeeding – in creating a vocal style that paralleled the attempts by John Coltrane and others to reach an almost ecstatic transcendence of emotion that characterized the best “spiritual jazz” of the era.

Joe Lee Wilson is a shamefully neglected artist in this country. He left the U.S. in 1977 and has carved out a career in the UK and France, and what does that tell us about the American music scene? Thanks to the producer and owner of the master of Livin’ High off Nickels and Dimes, who owns the rights, you can hear this great music here. There’s more Wilson on CD, too (ignore the out-of-date allmusic bio that’s floating around on the Net). I own a couple that I hope to review soon, and his Shout for Trane has just been reissued on the Japanese Why Not label – the title alone has convinced me to pick that one up. Joe Lee Wilson, please come home!

Azar Lawrence: Prayer for the Ancestors

John Coltrane's furious musical progress in his last years left a lot of territory unexplored. Azar Lawrence, an explorer of that terrain since his 1970's days as a sideman with McCoy Tyner and on a number of dates with Prestige, has emerged on the scene again. Prayer for the Ancestors is a dazzling outburst of jazz as a spiritual venture. On the title tune and "Swinging in Exile", Lawrence soars on tenor, while meditating on soprano on "Under Tanzanian Skies" and "Ode to Pharaoh.". "Thokole" features Ibrahim Ba on vocals and guitar and Amadu Fall on kora in a mode reminiscent of the 60's folk era. The criminally underrated Nate Morgan on piano, Henry Franklin on bass, and Alphonse Mouzon and Roy McCurdy on drums all contribute immensely to one of the best new CD's I've heard in quite a while. I got my copy from Dusty Groove, that redoubtable source of all things soulful. Check it out.

Noah Howard at Judson Hall

The ESP-Disk thread over at Organissimo has had several recent mentions of Noah Howard at Judson Hall as a possible candidate for reissue on CD, although the ESP web site is selling it as a download. I own the LP and I agree wholeheartedly that this music ought to be available as widely as possible. Howard on alto, Ric Colbeck on trumpet, Catherine Norris on cello, Dave Burrell on piano, and Sirone on bass produced some of the best free jazz of the Sixties on this record. There is an easy flow of deeply felt music building to a burst of energy playing on both tracks, with Homage to Coltrane a particular favorite of mine. It's free jazz for those that think they don't like freee jazz -- music to think and feel by. You should check it out.

And to all a Happy New Year!

Pick - Sonny Criss: The Complete Imperial Sessions

I've been listening to a lot of Sonny Criss today. Two CD's with more than an hour and a half's music sounded like a lot when I started, but the music just got better and better as I went along. Tender on ballads and a scorcher on mid- and uptempo tunes, Criss was a phenomenally gifted player. He burns up Sweet Georgia Brown, In the Still of the Night, and Criss Cross, just to cite a few of this collection's many high spots. I also was dazzled by Ornithology, which in an apparent attempt by Imperial Records to abide by the Truth in Changes Act, is listed as How High the Moon.

Bob Porter's liner notes are not extensive, but he did point out something that I should have noticed a long time ago: one of Sonny's big influences was Eddie Cleanhead Vinson. I've long thought that Vinson's great blues shouting has tended to overshadow his keening, bop-style alto playing, and Criss definitely has a ton of that feeling in his sound. I don't want to overplay the influence thing, though -- this was a master musician with a unique sound, ideas, and attack. It's a shame he didn't get more recognition in his day. Pick this one up if you can find it!

Todd Barkan Interview

There's a very interesting All About Jazz interview with veteran jazz producer Todd Barkan, who has some cogent thoughts about the popularity and marketing of jazz in the U.S. and Japan.

Drums of Passion

Once upon a time in a decade far, far away, a big-time record producer named John Hammond heard some African drumming at a concert and -- here's the fairy tale aspect -- without the use of focus groups or checking with the suits, just because he liked the music, he signed the artist to a record contract. The result? Babatunde Olatunji's Drums of Passion, perhaps the first "world music" record released commercially, sold 5 million copies and became one of the most influential recordings of its time. It's been 50 years, but its impact still reverberates today.

When I was growing up in New Jersey, I listened regularly to WINS in New York. It's all-news now, but in those days, it was a key rock and roll station. In the evening, the jock was Murray Kaufman, or "Murray the K", as he liked to call himself.(Later, he dubbed himself "The Fifth Beatle" -- no way). As background music, he sometimes played an African-sounding piece of music that featured a vocalist singing what sounded like "Akiwawa"; this became a catchphrase in my set. When I started listening to Symphony Sid Torin's all-night jazz show on WADO, he played the same piece, identifying the artist as Babatunde Olatunji and the album from which it was taken as Drums of Passion. He also played Odunde (Happy New Year) and Shango, an invocation to the Yoruba god of thunder. I was hooked. I asked my dad to buy me the album and, good dad that he was, he complied, although my parents thought popular music ended when Glenn Miller's plane went down. Looking back, it was a gateway though which I heightened my appreciation of all kinds of music.

I wasn't the only one. Bob Dylan referenced Olatunji on The Freewheling Bob Dylan" and John Coltrane, Freddy Hubbard, and other jazz musicians listened and learned, as did Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead. I believe Baba's music was key to the development not only of Coltrane's music but, through Trane, of the whole corpus of late Sixties and Seventies "spiritual jazz", of which I'll have more to say in future posts. Baba joined Martin Luther King's March on Washington but made his greatest contribution to America and the world by making his music available to listeners everywhere. Drums of Passion is available on CD, so do yourself a favor and pick it up. Odunde!