Month: August 2021

In the monthly The Necessary Blues album roundup, we typically cover new releases. However, this month we’ll highlight some recent reissues of out of print albums and first issues of historically important music that has never seen the light of day until now. Next month we’ll catch up with new albums, and we’ll plan on an additional mid month album roundup to bring us up to date. For now, enjoy some lost classics!

Don Cherry – The Summer House Sessions
(released June 18, 2021 – recorded July 20, 1968 at Kummelnäs, Sweden by Göran Freese)

Don Cherry – pocket trumpet, flutes, percussion
Bernt Rosengren – tenor saxophone, flutes, clarinet
Tommy Koverhult – tenor saxophone, flutes
Leif Wennerström – drums
Torbjörn Hultcrantz – bass
Jacques Thollot – drums
Kent Carter – bass
Bülent Ateş – hand drum, trap drums

Don Cherry’s New Researches featuring Naná Vasconcelos – Organic Music Theatre: Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon 1972
(released June 18, 2021, recorded live in 1972)

Don Cherry – piano, harmonium, tanpura, vocals
Naná Vasconcelos – berimbau, percussion
Christer Bothén -donso ngoni, piano, light percussion
Doudou Gouirand – soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, light percussion
Moki Cherry – tanpura, vocals, scenography
Annie Hedvard and Det Lilla Cirkus – puppet theater
Friends from Tågarp: Marianne Rydvall (additional and unintentional vocals), Craig, and other unknown characters

Driving home on a rainy summer afternoon I put on Don Cherry’s Organic Music Theatre at Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon 1972. By the time I reached the reprise of “Elixir”, a giant rainbow shot through the clouds, as the mist from a late summer shower lifted off the ground. This could be no simple coincidence – the healing power from Don Cherry’s music summoned this rainbow into existence! I don’t think my reverie was out of place – Cherry’s music from the 70’s embodies this interconnectedness between musical gestures, theater, spirituality, and the universal.

This summer has given us two lost Don Cherry masterpieces. Summer House captures Cherry when he was living in Sweden in 1968, where he spent weeks rehearsing European musicians on his musical concepts. This culminated in the recording of the Summer House sessions, which were promptly lost for over 50 years until the tapes were discovered in the vaults of the Swedish Jazz Archive. Thank heavens they were found – while the additional tracks are unnecessary, on “Side A” the music that enfolds is pastoral and beautiful, and “Side B” moves swiftly through a kaleidoscope of interesting ideas. These musical suites are in the style of Cherry’s landmark Symphony for Improvisers, and worthy heirs to that great album.

Organic Music Theatre (which summoned my rainbow) is even more remarkable. By 1972 Cherry had moved beyond “jazz” altogether. Here he ditches his pocket trumpet in favor of singing, keyboards and leading (with his partner Moki Cherry) a community of percussionists, puppeteers, travelers from Sweden and an audibly enchanted all age audience. One wonders what a regular jazz festival attendee stumbling on Cherry’s troupe would think after seeing somebody like Martial Solal. I would like to think newcomers would have been disarmed by the directness and openness of this transcendent music.

Sun Ra – Lanquidity (Definitive Edition)
(released June 25, 2021; recorded July 17, 1978)

Sun Ra – organ, synthesizer, piano, arranger, keyboards, Hammond organ, electric piano, vocals, bells, Arp, Fender Rhodes, orchestra bells, Mini Moog
John Gilmore – tenor saxophone
Danny Ray Thompson – flute, baritone saxophone
Eddie Gale – trumpet
Michael Ray – trumpet, flugelhorn
Marshall Allen – flute, oboe, alto saxophone
Luqman Ali – percussion
Michael Anderson – percussion
Artaukatune – drums, tympani
Disco Kid (Slo Johnson) – guitar
Dale Williams – guitar
Atakatun Odun – congas
Elo Omoe – Flute, bass clarinet
Julian Pressley – baritone saxophone
Richard Williams – bass
James Jacson – oboe, basson, flute, voices
June Tyson – voices

Recorded on the heels of Sun Ra’s appearance on Saturday Night Live (you can view the whole SNL episode here and here), this Sun Ra album deserves it’s heavy reputation. The music is very accessible too. This issue presents the original album mix and a second remixed version of the album that was prepared contemporaneously, but only released at one 1978 Arkestra gig at Georgia Tech. With the remixed versions, you get a terrific mirror image of the same material, that makes you go back and forth from the originals and then back to the remixes again! Incredibly, the Sun Ra Arkestra is still going under the leadership of 97 year old Marshall Allen. See them if you can, and check out last year’s excellent Swirling.

Annette Peacock – The Perfect Release
(released May 14, 2021)

Annette Peacock – vocals, producer
Robert Ahwai – guitar
Max Middleton – keyboards
John McKenzie – bass
Richard Bailey – drums
Darryl Lee Que – percussion
Lennox Langton – steel drums, percussion

Annette Peacock is super cool, and those fans hip enough to know these records are too. Now the rest of the world has a chance to catch up with the reissue of 1979’s The Perfect Release (it is!) and X-Dreams from the year before. I’ve been dancing to “Solar Systems” since I first heard it. Next stop: please re release Peacock’s out of print 1980’s albums!

Joe Henderson – The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions
(release April 18, 2021)

Joe Henderson (tenor sax) with various ensembles

At TNB we have not written about the great Mosaic Records, and we’ll need to remedy that. Mosaic was founded in 1983 with the purpose of issuing then out of print jazz classics. Their first issue was the Thelonious Monk Blue Notes. Since then this small Connecticut based record label has produced 168 of their deluxe big box sets, each a definitive look at a slice of an artist’s career. Every Mosaic fan has their favorites. At TNB, we are really partial to the Woody Shaw Muse, the Ahmad Jamal Argo sessions, and the recent Hank Mobley Blue Notes.

Joe Henderson is overdue for the Mosaic treatment! On The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions, and as always, Henderson’s playing astounds. There is no musician who is more in the moment and who’s playing yields more surprises note for note. Mosaic’s website says they used the same process to transfer the CDs from the original Blue Note tapes as they did on the terrific Hank Mobley set. I can attest the sound on the Mobley set is great, and I trust this one is too. JoeHen lives!

Roy Brooks – Understanding
(released July 23, 2021; Recorded Live at The Famous Ballroom in Baltimore, MD on November 1, 1970)

Roy Brooks – drums
Carlos Garnett – tenor saxophone
Woody Shaw – trumpet
Harold Mabern – piano
Cecil McBee – bass

The sweaty picture on the cover of this album says a lot about the fiery music contained within. Leader Brooks and this whole band are in great form on these extended live performances, but to these ears the main draw is Woody’s Shaw’s majestic trumpet. Check out Shaw’s electrifying solo on the title track. Smoking stuff. The receptive audience is like a sixth band member, their audible reactions and contributions are part of the fun. You can literally hear minds being blown on the frenetic version of Shaw’s “Zoltan.” This is another set of tapes rescued from oblivion and issued 50 years later – good to have it.

Joe McPhee – Black Is The Color: Live in Poughkeepsie and New Windsor, 1969​-​70
(released May 31, 2021; Concert 1 Recorded October 23, 1969 at Chicago Hall, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY; Concert 2 Recorded January 12, 1969, at St. Helena Convent, New Windsor, NY; Concert 3 Recorded May 24, 1970 at Lincoln Center, Poughkeepsie, NY)

Personnel:
Concert 1:
Joe McPhee – trumpet, tenor, and soprano saxophone
Tyrone Crabb – bass
Ernest Bostic – vibes
Bruce Thompson – drums
Concert 2:
Joe McPhee – tenor saxophone, trumpet
Reggie Marks – tenor saxophone, flute
Tyrone Crabb – bass
Bruce Thompson – drums
Concert 3:
Joe McPhee – tenor saxophone
Mike Kull – piano
Tyrone Crabb – electric bass
Chico Hawkins – drums
Octavius Graham – vocals

Strangely I missed this album in my rundown of Joe McPhee in Jazz from Poughkeepsie. This 2 CD set is more of the same, so if you liked Nation Time, this is for you too. CD 1 is another Concert from Vassar, this one a year before the Nation Time concert. McPhee starting with “God Bless the Child” is a revelation – there’s a clear line between his playing here and his later treatment of blues and spirituals, such as with Trio X. This issue also documents two other concerts from the same era. More proof that McPhee arrived fully formed as a jazz great.

Joe McPhee- Nation Time
(Original Issue – CJR, 1971)

Tracks discussed:
Nation Time
Shakey Jake
Personnel:
Joe McPhee – tenor saxophone, trumpet
Mike Kull – piano, electric piano
Tyrone Crabb – bass, electric bass, trumpet
Bruce Thompson, Ernest Bostic – percussion
On “Shakey Jake” add:
Otis Greene – alto saxophone
Herbie Lehman – organ
Dave Jones – guitar
(Music recorded in concert at December 12, 1970 at Chicago Hall at Vassar College Urban Center for Black Studies; “Shaky Jake” recorded without an audience on December 13, 1970 at the same location)

Joe McPhee – Black Magic Man
(Hat Hat A, 1975)

Tracks discussed:
Black Magic Man
Hymn of the Dragon Kings
Personnel:
Joe McPhee – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone on “Hymn of the Dragon Kings”
Mike Kull – piano, electric piano
Tyrone Crabb – bass, electric bass
Bruce Thompson, Ernest Bostic – percussion
(Recorded on December 12, 1970, at Vassar concert, same as above)

Too many stories in creative music focus on the big cities. It’s easy to be left with the impression that New York, London and a handful of other cities are responsible for almost all creative expression. So it’s interesting to look at a time when a living legend – Joe McPhee – was a young musician making his way in his lifelong home of Poughkeepsie, New York. Poughkeepsie is a two hour train ride from the Big Apple, and not the place you’d expect state-of-the-art avant garde music to be conceived and performed. Yet in this small working class city on a weekend in 1970, some of the most influential improvised music of that time was recorded. This edition of TNB will look at McPhee’s early work and an outstanding concert that spawned two record labels and changed modern music.

Joe McPhee is a born creator. Although you may know McPhee as a tenor saxophonist, he started on trumpet, which his father taught him to play as a child. After a stint in the army, McPhee played trumpet at nights while holding down a day job at a local ball bearing factory. McPhee has said in interviews that while his early inspiration was from Miles Davis, through the 1960’s he listened to and was inspired by saxophone players – John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, and especially Albert Ayler. McPhee decided he needed to play the same instrument as his heroes, and while on strike from the factory in his late 20’s, McPhee acquired a tenor sax from a friend. Legend has it that he played that tenor at a gig two days later! Whether or not that’s apocryphal, he was playing tenor (as well as trumpet) at the 1968 and 1969 gigs that make up his first album Underground Railroad – and sounds great!

It’s this surging talent that presented a weekend of great music at Vassar College in December 1970. McPhee had found a position as an associate professor at Vassar, where he taught a course called “Revolution In Sound.” According to an interview McPhee gave fellow saxophonist Ken Vandermark, this course culminated with McPhee giving a concert at Chicago Hall, the home of the Vassar Black Studies department. What a dream homework assignment for a college student to be in the audience that day!

Vassar’s Chicago Hall, the location of the December 12, 1970 Concert

The music from this concert was recorded by CJR label founder Craig Johnson, who issued three tracks played that weekend as the album Nation Time. Nation Time became an underground classic, and gained even more currency when it was later reissued in 2000 on the Atavistic Unheard Music Series.

The title track “Nation Time” is the obvious standout. Inspired by Amiri Baraka’s poem of the same name, the track starts with a memorable call and response – McPhee’s raspy voice yells “What time is it?!” and his audience (presumably mostly his Vassar students) yell back “Nation Time!” Then the music starts with an urgent four note riff played by McPhee’s tenor. The first solo is taken by Mike Kull on piano and then electric piano, and sets the stage for McPhee’s fiery playing. This music captures the spirit of a moment in America’s history where transformative change seemed possible.

McPhee released the track “Nation Time” together with another track from the December 12th concert, plus “Shakey Jake” recorded the next day at Chicago Hall with no audience and additional musicians (alto sax, organ, guitar). “Shakey Jake” balances the avant fire of the title track with an almost danceable vibe which is related to the energy music of the time. The 1971 release of the album Nation Time, is in every way, a classic.

But the story does not end there. McPhee and Craig Johnson recorded a wealth of additional material played on December 12th, 1970 that was not immediately released. Word of McPhee’s talent and this unreleased material made its way halfway around the world to a Swiss pharmaceutical executive and music enthusiast, Werner X. Uehlinger. After coming to the United States to meet McPhee and hear him play, Uehlinger was so impressed that he decided he would form a record label to make McPhee’s music better known. That label, Hat Hut records, released a string of brilliant Joe McPhee albums, the first being 1975’s Black Magic Man.

The front cover of Black Magic Man

The back cover. The graphics drawn by Klaus Baumgärtner are really lovely!

It’s fascinating to listen to Nation Time and Black Magic Man together, because they capture different aspects of the music performed at the December 12th concert. The tracks chosen for Nation Time are urgent, immediate, and capture a political and populist vibe. Those picked for Black Magic Man reveal a more experimental side to McPhee’s music. Side A of Black Magic Man features an exploration of post Coltrane spiritual music on tenor (the title track and “Song for Laureen”), while side B is a side long flight into energy music (“Hymn of the Dragon Kings“) that sees McPhee playing soprano and tenor, before building to a cacophonous two drummer blowout. Taking the music released from the December 1970 Vassar college concert together, it shows McPhee as a huge talent whose music was ready for prime time and needed (and still needs) to be heard by a wide audience.

A note about Hat Hut – while Werner X. Uehlinger’s label started out with a focus on McPhee, it quickly branched out and released powerful and important music by a deep roster of artists. Make sure that you check out great Hat Hut albums released by Steve Lacy, Cecil Taylor, Max Roach and Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton, Myra Melford and many, many more. The Hat labels also periodically will reissue classic albums from their back catalogue – although curiously not Black Magic Man itself! Keep your eye out for when that happens.

We shouldn’t neglect McPhee’s bandmates from the albums posted above, for they are not well known. For this concert McPhee called on local musicians from Poughkeepsie. McPhee used the same rhythm section from his first album Underground Railroad, Tyrone Crabb on bass and Ernest Bostic on drums. Added to Bosnic’s drums is a second drummer, Bruce Thompson. The twin drums on this concert often create powerful, surging rhythms for the music, especially on “Hymn of the Dragon Kings.”

The piano playing of Mike Kull is especially effective. Kull plays on every track; from Kull’s atmospheric playing at the beginning of “Black Magic Man” to the percussive Cecil Taylor – like runs elsewhere, Kull’s playing is flexible and supportive. Unfortunately, he does not appear on many other records other than the three he made with McPhee. However, Mike Kull still has continued to play piano live in the Poughkeepsie area in subsequent decades. Look out for Kull at mid Hudson Valley clubs – based on his playing here, he deserves to be better known.

But of course it’s McPhee who is the star. This music was made at the beginning of his career, but McPhee has gone on to create a massive discography with over a hundred albums. Where to go next?

For starters, if you like the music we’ve linked, try McPhee’s first album, Underground Railroad. Here he plays with much of the same cast over a year before the Vassar College Nation Time concert. Underground Railroad was recorded at the Holy Cross monastery in West Park, NY. The acoustics of the monastery allow a very low budget recording to sound urgent, as does to deployment of the music, which starts and ends with percussion, and moves on to urgent and intense horn playing. Also a great place to go to hear what a killer trumpet player McPhee is!

Hat Hut was created to document McPhee, and the string of Hat Hut releases from 1975 to 1982 that capture McPhee are classics. Most significant is Tenor, McPhee’s solo exploration of that instrument released in 1977. McPhee’s ability to maintain your attention and interest on a solo horn recital is astounding. Tenor is an album that has influenced many saxophone players, such as Ken Vandemark, who has said he became a tenor player because of McPhee and after hearing this important record. The first track on Tenor is on You Tube, and it’s on the streaming services with a bonus track.

Tenor, 1977. Yes, that’s a top hat with a Swiss flag in the right corner!

There are so many other places to go from here, and we can just scratch the surface. Try checking out McPhee’s many albums with Trio X, a group of truly sympathetic musicians where McPhee is joined by bass player Domenick Duval and drummer Jay Rosen. Or you can check out the recordings McPhee has made with Decoy, a modern take on the organ trio. Both AC/DC and Spontaneous Combusion are great. McPhee has always made a point of celebrating music of the past as much as pointing to the future, which is documented in an album of Paul Robeson’s music.

Most of all, if Joe McPhee is playing near you, go out and see him. COVID appears to have sidelined a lot of his activity, but he’s started playing in Europe again. Also, on Juneteenth of this year he played a duet with Tomeka Reid, thankfully well recorded. McPhee reads some of his poetry on this recording, including “It’s Nation Time – For Real This Time.” When McPhee finds more gigs back here in the United States, they need to be supported. Musicians this important and powerful are too precious to be neglected!