The Low Down on Frank Lowe

Frank Lowe didn’t like the studio system much and so didn’t leave behind the kind of legacy that he deserved.  He was an avant garde jazzman to his core but, as is often the case, there were deep streaks of tradition in his locks.  I have been listening today to a new acquisition: Decision in Paradise (1985).  All the comments on the recording I have read describe it as “conservative”.  It is in fact a genuine exploration of the bop sentiment.  In many ways, this is my favorite kind of jazz recording: an avant garde revolutionary trying out the old whiskey. 

I chose the album mostly for the band.  Don Cherry on trumpet suggests wild, but the suggestion goes wide of the mark.  Grachan Moncur III on trombone also misleads.  But I am a big fan of Moncur.  Geri Allen on piano, well, what’s not to like?  Charnette Moffett plays bass and Charles Moffett beats the skins. 

I am playing the title cut and ‘You Dig!’  This is one album that you will dig.  It’s available from Amazon for about $5.  Get it and dig it. 

I am also playing a cut from The Flam (1976), a more characteristic Lowe recording, I suspect, and a flamboyant avant garde document.  Joseph Bowie plays a spitting trumpet, Leo Smith draws from a quiver of horns, Alex Blake is on bass and Charles Bobo Shaw is on drums.  Lowe’s tenor is squelching and screechy, in a Charles Gaye sort of way.  Let it run. 

Cherry Ripe

NPR's All Songs Considered is not the place I usually go for news about jazz.  It's not that Bob Boilen and his crew are neglectful, let alone disrespectful of jazz; they do occasionally review jazz recordings.  It's just on the periphery of their musical interests.  ASC is where I go to find out what Jack White is up to.  

Today, however, I listened to one from a few weeks ago and they played a cut from an album called The Cherry Thing.  I ran to the laptop and spent some eMusic credits on it.  The Cherry is Neneh Cherry, stepdaughter of the great avant garde trumpet player, Don Cherry.  The Thing is Mats Gustafsson (saxes, organ, and electronics), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums).  The Trio is a hard driving avant garde instrument in the style of Ken Vandermark.  The combo reminds me less of other attempts to blend rap and jazz and more of the Steve Lacy cuts that include vocals, such as 'Inside My Head' on The Holy La. 

The album includes original compositions as well as interpretations of punk, hard rock, and rap numbers.  It also has one composition by Ornette Coleman and one by Don Cherry.  I am playing the latter "Golden Heart', and  'Sudden Moment' by Gustafsson.  

This is an album worth listening to.  Don Cherry is by far the biggest gravitational force in the music.  At times, Gustafsson seems to be channeling him.  Give it a try. 

Archie Shepp

I have been loading some Shepp onto my Live365 station.  Today I put up 'Emotions', from Don Cherry Live in Europe '64.  Shepp is listed as the leader in some accounts.  It's basically the same combo as recorded Shepp's seminal album The New York Contemporary Five.   Shepp on tenor, John Tchicai on alto, Cherry on cornet.  The New York album is one of those that belongs in any modest jazz collection.  The '64 recordings are priceless because they further document a band that had no commercial potential.  

I also uploaded 'Hambone' from Shepp's wonderful album Fire Music.  This is raw, dig down along the live wire avant garde.   Here's the band:

• Alto Saxophone – Marion Brown
• Bass – Reggie Johnson (tracks: A1, A2, B2, B3)
• Drums – Joe Chambers (tracks: A1, A2, B2, B3)
• Tenor Saxophone – Archie Shepp
• Trombone – Joseph Orange
• Trumpet – Ted Curson

I'll let that stand for now.   Oh, okay, here's one more.  I love this duet album with Shepp and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen.  It's a great horn/bass duo.  I am playing 'Billie's Bounce' from Looking at Bird. 

Don Cherry

Many avant garde jazz men have attempted compositions on the scale and of the form of the great classical composers.  Don Cherry is a fine example.  The two CD set The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Don Cherry presents this work.  It is very hard, very compelling music.  You can find part of this music on Cherry's recording Complete Communion. 

I am playing the title cut from that album.  Here is the lineup: 

• Bass – Henry Grimes, J.-F. Jenny-Clark (tracks: 1-3, 2-1)
• Cornet – Don Cherry
• Drums – Edward Blackwell*
• Tenor Saxophone – Leandro "Gato" Barbieri* (tracks: 1-1 to 2-1)
• Tenor Saxophone, Piccolo Flute – Pharoah Sanders (tracks: 1-3 to 2-6)
• Vibraphone, Piano – Karl Berger (tracks: 1-3, 2-1) 

'Complete Communion' is a marvelous articulation of the soul of jazz along a number of traditional dimensions.  Like a lot of Cherry's music, it is drum heavy, but everyone gets their time here.  I really dig this music.

Many jazz fans will know Cherry only from his album with Coltrane: The Avant Garde.   I am playing 'Bemsha Swing', a great Monk tune, and 'Focus on Sanity', an Ornette Coleman composition.  Here is the lineup from that recording:

• Bass – Charlie Haden (tracks: 1, 3), Percy Heath (tracks: 2, 4, 5)
• Drums – Ed Blackwell
• Soprano Saxophone – John Coltrane (tracks: 3)
• Tenor Saxophone – John Coltrane (tracks: 1, 2, 4, 5)
• Trumpet – Don Cherry

Don Cherry Was There

You might think of Don Cherry as a lesser Eric Dolphy.  Cherry's work, so far as I know it, hardly measured up to Dolphy's indispensable contributions to jazz, and he has no recordings as leader that stand anywhere near Far Cry or Out To Lunch.   On the other hand, Cherry's own recordings are very impressive and unjustly overlooked, and like Dolphy he managed to appear as sideman on a considerable number of seminal documents.  

Cherry's most famous work was as sideman on Ornette Coleman's recordings on Atlantic.  This was a body of music that, according to those who treasure it, changed jazz forever.  You can get it all in a box set: Beauty Is A Rare Thing.  I haven't made up my mind yet about the value of this set of records, but there is no denying that The Shape of Jazz to Come is a monumental achievement.  Likewise with Archie Shepp's The New York Contemporary Five.  That is not to forget The Avant Garde, on which Cherry shares billing with John Coltrane, which is kinda like Jimmy Olsen sharing billing with Superman.  Cherry is also featured prominently on one of my personal favorites: Steve Lacy's Evidence.  Don Cherry was by Zeus there when it was happening.  

All of this work is pretty challenging avant garde jazz, and to be a figure of secondary importance in a music that necessarily appeals to an audience that is only a subset of the jazz audience is not a recipe for immortal fame.  That can lead to a great injustice, and the neglect of Cherry's first album as sole leader is a crime.  

Complete Communion (1965) is superb.  The quartet was made up of Cherry, Leandro "Gato" Barbieri on saxophone, Henry Grimes on bass, and Ed Blackwell on drums.  The synergy between the four is perfect, but the real brilliance of the album comes from the dialogue between Cherry and the Argentine Barbieri.  I don't know the latter's work.  I gather that he rediscovered his Latin heritage and specialized in it in later recordings.  He began, however, as a devotee of Charlie Parker.  His life reads like a Mario Vargas Llosa novel.  On this recording, his playing is nothing short of genius.  In fact, if I may reuse the analogy, it reminds me in places of Eric Dolphy's early accompaniments. 

Like its successor, Symphony for Improvisers, this album consists of two "symphonies," each about twenty minutes in length.  I don't want to give away half an album, so here is an excerpt from the first side of the first album.  It will give you a pretty good idea of the Cherry/Barbieri dialogue that I am talking about.  

Don Cherry/Complete Communion (excerpt)/Complete Communion

If you like this, Cherry's recordings for Blue Note are available individually, or you might be able to find the box set The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Don Cherry.  The latter includes Where is Brooklyn?  Listen to all three.  You still won't know where Brooklyn is, but you will know that Cherry is where it's at.