Tag: henrygrimes

Archie Shepp, On This Night

Album of the Week, March 30, 2024

Though their playing time together was limited, Archie Shepp would forever be linked to his mentor John Coltrane, in no small part because of the record that the two of them shared, New Thing at Newport. Recorded July 2, 1965, the record featured the two quartets performing independently, rather than together, but demonstrated the affinity between the two saxophonists’ styles. But for me, Shepp’s group is interesting because it features his performing partnership with another undersung musician, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, a partnership documented more fully on today’s record, On This Night.

Hutcherson (born in 1941 in Los Angeles) was just 24 the year that both New Thing at Newport and On This Night were recorded, but he had already been playing professionally for years, recording his first session at the age of 19 with the Les McCann Trio. Sessions with Herbie Lewis followed and led to Hutcherson joining Jackie McLean’s group on the Blue Note recording One Step Beyond. More Blue Note sessions followed, including collaborations with Grachan Moncure, Eric Dolphy, Tony Williams, and Grant Green. The rest of the players on this session, Hutcherson’s first with Shepp, included J.C. Moses and David Izenson on the closing track, which was recorded at the same session that yielded “Malcolm, Malcolm, Semper Malcolm” on last week’s Fire Music, as well as Henry Grimes on bass, Ed Blackwell on rhythm logs, and both Joe Chambers and Rashied Ali on drums. (We’ll hear more about Ali another time.)

As with Fire Music, Shepp recorded the album in two sessions, the March 9 session shared with Fire Music and an August 12 session that yielded the rest of the tracks, save one. “The Mac Man,” from the second session, starts the album with a post-bop flavor, Hutcherson and Shepp playing the short theme and immediately dropping into mutual improvisation, Shepp blowing sheets of sound while Hutcherson surfs chromatic waves through the cosmos and Grimes explores different modal scales on the bass. The group comes together into something like a blues that just as quickly morphs into a ballad, if only for a moment, before returning to the blues shuffle that reveals itself as the main tune. The blues morphs back into the opening cosmic exploration over what can only be described as a percussion freak-out led by Ed Blackwell’s rhythm logs, before settling into a final loping exploration in a minor key.

Hutcherson modulates into the opening chords of “In a Sentimental Mood,” conjuring a more familiar tonality out of the chaos, as Shepp’s free explorations similarly lead into a statement of the melody of the Ellington/Kurtz/Mills standard that manages to be both delicate and woozy at the same time, evoking the robust articulation of Johnny Hodges. It’s a stunning tonal shift after “The Mac Man.”

“Gingerbread, Gingerbread Boy,” recorded live at Newport, is much freer. Beginning with a bass line from Barre Phillips, the ensemble improvises around major and diminished minor chords from Hutcherson before abruptly shifting into a fast melody that alternates with a slower section. The band then enters hyperspace, collectively exploring the chordal space of the fast section as Shepp overblows his horn over sustained notes in the vibes. The exploration continues as Hutcherson surrounds the group with clouds of vibes, and Shepp ends his solo with a repeated melodic line (VIII – V – VI – III – IV – VI – II – VII). After Hutcherson takes a turn, the melodic line returns, now played over a slow blues. A burst of the fast melody closes the performance, and the side.

“On This Night (If That Day Would Come)” is another thing entirely. A tribute to W.E.B. Dubois, the opening could easily be a 20th century classical art song, in this case performed by Christine Spencer and accompanied by Shepp on piano. The soprano performs Shepp’s poem that calls for the end of racial injustice: “Now is the time for all men to stand/Rise up you starved and toiling masses/My brothers sister all/We cannot fail, justice is our avenging angel/All hail the birth of truth … And the worker’s voice resounds: Give back the valleys, steppes and the plains./They are mine, they are mine./On this night (if that great day would come)/The dawn of freedom/For the people shall take arms as one/No power can prevail/We cannot fail now…” After the soprano leads out of the melody, the band, now joined by Hutcherson, plays a howl before Grimes leads them into a blues, over which Shepp blows a cool solo that rapidly heats up before relaxing back into the blues. Spencer returns with a reprise of the poem, asking, “Behold the blood from my brother’s veins/How will we remember?” and accompanied by Shepp, this time on the saxophone. It’s moving and completely unlike anything else that we will hear from Shepp.

“The Original Mr. Sonny Boy Williamson,” named after the famed blues harmonica player and singer (of “Bring It On Home” fame), is not a blues, but the melody is easily the most quotable on the record before Shepp begins his improvisation. He burns out over chords that seem slightly familiar—is that a touch of “So What” in Hutcherson’s lines?—before the band comes back to the theme once more. It’s an almost peaceful tune, a peace that’s promptly shattered by the last track, “The Pickaninny (picked clean — no more — or can you back back doodlebug).” Starting with a clownish theme, the band shifts into new melodies and improvisations that take us into new places. As Nat Hentoff says in the liner notes, “Having been picked clean, the Pickaninny now knows where he’s at — and he’s moving.”

Assembled though it may be from a grab bag of recording sessions, On This Night still stands for me as a monument, though admittedly sometimes an inscrutable one. Held together by the interplay between Shepp and Hutcherson, and the mighty rhythm sections on each track, it’s well worth seeking out in the original LP form.* As for Shepp, he’s still recording, putting out new records every few years, many on his Paris-based Archieball label. The 2017 joint recording with Jason Moran, Let My People Go, was a highlight of that year in jazz for me. But his influence on Trane acted like an orbital boost, slingshotting Trane’s exploratory tendencies into a higher gear. We’ll hear an outcome from all that exploration next time.

You can listen to the album here:

* When On This Night was reissued on CD alongside New Thing at Newport, the reissue producers moved “Gingerbread, Gingerbread Boy” onto the latter recording along with the rest of Shepp’s Newport set. They then filled the void in the set with several alternate takes and outtakes from the session, as well as bringing “Malcolm, Malcolm, Semper Malcolm” from Fire Music. While the resulting compilation makes some sense, it hardly resembles the original intention of the compilation. The original LP is worth seeking out—as the price tag on my 1974 reissue copy (top) indicates, it’s even affordable.

P.S. – If Bobby Hutcherson’s playing intrigues you, you can check him out as both a sideman and a leader on the “Positive Vibrations” edition of Exfiltration Radio.

McCoy Tyner, Reaching Fourth

Album of the Week, January 27, 2024

The repercussions of John Coltrane’s reach into avant-garde jazz, and subsequent backlash from some critics, can be traced in his early career in the 1960s, as albums after Africa/Brass took a different approach and recordings from the 1961 residencies went unpublished for several years. It’s tempting to read McCoy Tyner’s Impulse! recordings through the same lens, imagining that his substantial talents in forcefully modal jazz were suppressed by the label. Some critics have read the early Tyner recordings as evidence that he was insufficiently innovative for Coltrane’s group, foresaging his eventual departure.

The truth of the matter appears to have been mundanely commercial. Creed Taylor had left Impulse! in the summer of 1961, and his successor, Bob Thiele, asked Tyner to record more straightforward jazz albums. —I should note something about the classic Impulse! recordings before I go any further. Like Blue Note before it and CTI after, Impulse! under Taylor and his successors created a distinctive graphic identity through the use of photography, typography, design, and the overall excellence of the physical package, and Reaching Fourth is no exception. Released in a gatefold cover with striking photography and text against a black background, and the orange, black and white “house style” design on the back, it’s a gorgeous package, and the design holds up even in my 1974 reissued copy.

Whatever the impetus of the album, Reaching Fourth is a mix of standards and intriguing Tyner originals, recorded as a trio with bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Roy Haynes. Grimes, who would go on to build an important career in free jazz as a member of groups led by Pharaoh Sanders, Steve Lacy, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, and others had come to fame at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival and its accompanying documentary, Jazz on a Summer’s Day. Word spread about his amazing playing and he ended up playing with six different groups throughout the festival. Haynes, who had been playing since his debut in his native Boston in 1942, had recorded with Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Bud Powell, and Sarah Vaughan. (He is still going strong; his 95th birthday party in 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19. I saw him play in that same 1993 jazz festival at UVA, where he clearly could outplay all the young musicians in his band.)

The title track is a Tyner composition that seems designed to showcase the more imaginative side of his writing and performance. It bears some of his early hallmarks—unusual modal voicings, a brisk tempo, high velocity runs. But it also benefits from the excellence of his collaborators. Haynes’ drumming stays on the off beat and punctuates Tyner’s solo with brisk snare rolls, while Grimes’ fiercely percussive plucked accompaniment turns into a fiery bowed solo. Haynes trades eights with both Grimes and Tyner, exploring the full tonal color of his kit in the process.

“Goodbye”, written by Gordon Jenkins after the death of his first wife, changes the pace to a meditative rumination. The tune and chords swing from minor in the verse to major in the chorus and back, as though discovering different facets of grief in each new bar. Tyner’s playing has a sensitive touch even as he traces the contours and changes of the tune, and Haynes and Grimes are quietly supportive. It’s a deep sigh of a tune.

“Theme for Ernie,” written by guitarist Fred Lacey for saxophonist Ernie Henry, is a bubbly tune that’s given a bouncy reading. Tyner’s playing pulls at the corners of the melody with brisk runs, accompanied by Grimes at his most buoyant. Grimes’ solo is melodically indebted to Scott LaFaro; indeed, this track brings to mind some of the telepathic interchange between LaFaro and Bill Evans on their trio recordings.

Tyner’s other original, “Blues Back,” is a straight blues, and Grimes especially plays it straight, sounding each note as though tolling a bell. Tyner, by contrast, shows how this blues swings into different modes almost with every measure, even creating a Mixolydian counter-melody in the fourth chorus of his solo. Grimes takes a two-chorus solo that explores some of Tyner’s melodic ideas before the trio returns to the theme once more.

“Old Devil Moon” (which the track listing tells us is from the 1947 Broadway show Finian’s Rainbow) is more commonly remembered as a tune in Frank Sinatra’s catalog; before Sinatra, Miles recorded it in 1953 on his Prestige Records release The Miles Davis Quartet. Tyner takes the tune in a completely different direction, opening with a modal progression between bass and piano, before returning to the main melody. Grimes’ bass line remains constant between the more traditional sections and the modal interludes, providing a pedal point against which Tyner stretches the melody. Haynes helps the forward motion, keeping a steady rhythm with a little trip against the snare in the fourth beat of each measure. Together, the group seems to lean from the straight and narrow into more exciting territory, then to settle back into the straight paths as though with a grin.

“Have You Met Miss Jones” closes out the album; Tyner takes the Rodgers and Hart classic from 1937’s I’d Rather Be Right and dispatches it at breakneck speed. In the coda, Grimes plays octaves around which Tyner improvises a modal melody, wrapping up the whole thing in less than four minutes. It’s a remarkable exercise in economy and a lot of fun too.

After listening to Tyner’s early work with Coltrane, listening to his early trio recordings for Impulse! can initially feel like a step back to an earlier, simpler conception of jazz. Reaching Fourth repays careful listening, showing off his innovative ear and unique compositional gifts; we’ll hear more of both as we listen to more of the recordings in the catalog. Next week we’ll pick up Coltrane’s story where we left off, finding him in a very different territory than the New York clubs that hosted his last explorations.

You can listen to this week’s album here: