Bart – George Adams/Don Pullen – “His Eye is on the Sparrow” – Beautiful. Spiritual. And Bart & I were just taking about how great these albums are. How great these two musicians play and how they can take the music in any direction. We contemplate why they are so rarely referenced and at least I think it is a combination of the time of their ascendency, the 70’s and 80’s when Jazz was at its meekest influence and that they both passed early and somewhat anonymously. Pullen passed at 54, he could play everything, but was most aligned with the 3rd wave of Avant Garde musicians. He frequently chose Hard Bop and Latin music as outlets too. Between the mid-70’s through early 80’s he prolifically records, but often (as was the case in that era for Jazz recordings) for International labels. At the end of his life he recorded several albums for Blue Note.
Adams passed a few years before Pullen and he had a similar career with less recordings as a leader. Jointly their quartet ran from 79-92 (when Adams passed). They both passed a few years older than I am now and thus it feels in both cases that we are missing their possible contributions. They connected in Mingus’s last bands and played frequently with Dannie Richmond continuing some of Mingus’s legacy. Though they often played Free, they had a wealth of variety and choose FUN frequently, Adams would occasionally sing and they generally have a sense of reckless abandon which is joyful. Bart & I agree they should be more known for their contributions.
Dan – Roberto Roena – “Una Mañana” – José José – I picked this Salsa album and it was an unknown, and definitely something I grabbed because I doubted I would see it again – probably low on the reissue list and Fania is already mired in weird schedules of rerelease. When I looked up Roena’s history it said they were looking for a Bongo player who could dance and one thing that is more prominent in Salsa is that Percussion players often are leaders, at least more so than in Pop, Classical and Jazz. This album, with its fantastic cover!, is amazing throughout but this song had incredible dissonance (including a really out of tune Brass player) and I had to find the original version by Jose Jose to see if this was a new arrangement or was intended. The liners barely tell us who is playing but its definitely an unusual arrangement of a very consonant Pop song and wonderful in its oddity.
Travis – Uggh sick groove. Old/new sounding too. But new. Fast but strangely sloggy. Probably because it is very pointillistic. Peter Evans – “In See”. The hyper beat reminds me of dance music, but its also really jumping around sonically. Some of the trumpet parts remind me of practice exercises, it doesn’t mar the track but it does sound like an etude transformed into Avant Garde Dance music. Bart didn’t recognize Evans, but recognized his technical fluency and that few trumpet players could actually accomplish this. Travis confuses me with some discussion that blurs the lines between the known social world around Evans’s music and the behind the scene maneuverings that I tend to want to avoid. But this is Social music and people tend to have feelings, so in that sense it makes sense. I have no context to contribute to that conversation, but Peter Evans is a hell of a trumpet player.
Found Sounds 