A Mountain of a Hemphill

Just randomly strolling through my collection tonight I hit on The Julius Hemphill Sextet.  Avant gardener Hemphill (1938-1995) seems to be the almost invisible man.  I couldn't find an entry on him in the Jazz Encyclopedia.  Nor could I find the album Five Card Stud on Discogs.  That's damned odd, because Discogs has pretty much everything.  

Anyway, Five Card Stud is a very fine piece of work.  It is all saxophone all the time.  Here is the lineup, from Wikipedia:

• Julius Hemphill - composer
• Tim Berne - alto saxophone
• Marty Ehrlich - soprano saxophone, alto saxophone
• Sam Furnace - soprano saxophone, alto saxophone
• James Carter - tenor saxophone
• Andrew White - tenor saxophone
• Fred Ho - baritone saxophone

I note the presence of Tim Berne.   An all horn band is a lot like a Capella music: voice is everything.  Fortunately, the sax has a lot of rich voice.  I don't miss the drums or the ubiquitous thump of the jazz bass, maybe because some of the horns are thumping like a bass.  Much of the composition divides between a solo, a horn doing bass, and an orchestra-like chorus. 

Search this one out.  Everything on it is toe curling good.   I am playing 'Moat and the Bridge' from the album. 

Another Hemphill recording (the only other one I have) is Flat-out Jump Suite.  This is a pure avant garde concept album, with titles 'Ear', 'Mind', 'Heart', and 'Body'.  You don't want to miss hearing this one. 

The Julius Hemphill Quartet is:

• Julius Hemphill - flute, tenor saxophone
• Olu Dara - trumpet
• Abdul Wadud - cello
• Warren Smith - percussion

 I am playing 'The Body' on my L365 station. 

Day & Taxi

I've had About by Day & Taxi sitting way down on my eMusic wish list for maybe a year.  It went on the list for the same reason as all its neighbors: The Penguin Guide to Jazz.  I am not sure quiet why I finally got around to it.  It may have had something to do with the beguiling photo on the cover.  At any rate, it is a real find, exactly the kind of thing you are going to like, if you like that sort of thing. 

Day & Taxi is a trio led by Swiss soprano saxophonist Christoph Gallio.  On the 1998 release, Dominique Girod plays bass and Dieter Ulrich is on drums.  Saxophone trios aren't common and do not seem to command a large audience.  They tend to empty the air around them like some ancient bard and lean heavily toward the moody and abstract.  Playing soprano sax does nothing to reverse the direction.  It is no wonder that sax trios almost always play avant garde jazz. 

On the other hand, I cannot thing of another sort of jazz combo that is so perfect for weaving a muscular narrative.  Ken Vandermark's DKV trio, which I reviewed recently, is a good example.  When a fine sax trio gets going on a theme, it can generate drama faster than a drum and flute with a real, live army behind 'em.  I thought that About is the closest anyone has come to catching up with the genius of Steve Lacy.  I put the best cut on the album, 'Madagaskar', up on my Jazz Note station.  You could pass it off as a Lacy trio.  The same is true of most of the cuts.  

Day & Taxi is a marvelous trio, well worth your while.  Gallio is a very thoughtful storyteller.  Girod and Ulrich provide a lot of thunder and tremor at all the dramatic moments.  This is splendid avant garde jazz.