The Necessary Blues

Equipose (1978, Galaxy Records)
Stanley Cowell, Piano; Cecil McBee, Bass; Roy Haynes, Drums

Equipoise

Musa and Maimoun

Dave’s Chant

At the end of 2020, we got the sad news that the pianist Stanley Cowell died on December 17th at the age of 79. Excellent obits by Nate Chinen and Giovanni Russonello are recommended and are very informative about Cowell’s life and his music.

An important key to Cowell’s art is apparent on his first record date, Marion Brown’s Three for Shepp. The album is a prime example of the fire of the mid sixties avant grade, full of dissonant energy. On the tune Spooks, the young Cowell takes the first solo and immediately breaks into stride piano, channeling Art Tatem amidst the maelstrom. You can listen to it here. On his only other solo from this date (the tune Delicado) he plays Cecil Taylor-like runs that were more current for 1966. Right from the beginning Cowell demonstrates that he embraces new progressive music making, but also brings the chops, knowledge and taste from the jazz tradition. Cowell is one of music’s most complete musicians.

Cowell made a number of impressive records that demonstrate this simultaneous embrace of the past and the future. Most prominent is his incredible solo record Musa – Ancestoral Streams, where he plays a fantastic range of potent original compositions. Some highlights are the earthy use of thumb piano on Travelin Man’, the searching modal composition Prayer for Peace, and the avant garde (and amazingly virtuosic) Departure. This is one of the definite solo piano records, period.

Another of Cowell’s outstanding records from the 1970’s is Equipose, released in 1978 on the Galaxy label. The name of the album is taken from Cowell’s composition of the same name. Equipoise seems a fitting title for Cowell’s best known tune – his music embraces a balance between two forces often pitted against each other – modernism and the tradition. I’ve posted the above tracks to celebrate this high water mark of Cowell’s great music.

Much of the success of Equipose is because of the amazing musicians that support Cowell – Cecil McBee on bass and Roy Haynes on drums. These are musicians who knew each other well. Cowell and McBee played together in a crucial working band of the early 70’s – Charles Tolliver’s Music, Inc. Cowell is on two Roy Haynes albums with McBee from the prior year (Thank You Thank You and Vistalite) and McBee, Haynes and Cowell serve as the rhythm section on Art Pepper’s excellent comeback album Today (1978). Cowell and Haynes had both played on Jack DeJohnette’s The DeJohnette Complex (1969), and Haynes clearly had an affection for Cowell’s music – Haynes recorded the tune Equipoise on his own records in 1971 and 2011. You can hear the empathy between these musicians in these definitive performances.

One of challenges of performing the song Equipose is to create excitement and variety when soloing over the call and response melody. Cowell neatly solves this problem by choosing a brisk tempo for this version, leaving room in the arrangement for interaction with the bass and drums, and then playing the second chorus of his solo in double time. The results are quite amazing! Cowell is able to preserve the melancholy mood of the piece, but also fill the performance with energy and texture.

This is the only recording I know of Musa and Maimoun. Not many tunes have the unexpected twists and turns this one does. The performance starts in a somber place but quickly morphs and transforms, sounding more and more urgent with each bar. The way Cowell steadily notches the intensity up as his performance progresses is something to behold. Then McBee takes a wonderful solo which shows his speech-like articulation. Cowell returns and plays forcefully, exchanging fours with Haynes. By the time the tune de-accelerates and slides back into it’s plaintive melody, you’ve been on quite a journey!

Dave’s Chant is a showcase for the excitement this trio can create. After a vamp set up by McBee’s bass, the tune quickly picks up steam. Haynes’ drumming on his snare and ride cymbal is hyperkinetic, and Cowell’s playing at this tempo is fleet and dexterous. Cowell uses blues vocabulary, bebop, and pianistic runs to striking effect. I’ve played this tune over and over – the playing is something to marvel at and the energy level is awesome!

Equipoise is one of many great entries in Cowell’s under appreciated discography. Throughout, he shows how big his ears and heart were, with an openness to both old and new musical language and readiness to make a distinctive statement in any setting. In an interview with Jimmy Heath in Jazz Times (Cowell played piano with the Heath Brothers band for years), Heath said about Cowell:

“His music is unique. It’s not like anyone else’s that I know. He’s not strictly a bebopper, and he’s not strictly from the Tatum school. He’s got his own voice in this world. He has things as avant-garde as Ornette Coleman and that era of music. The whole spectrum of African-American classical music. And he never forgets the history of African-American people, and he tries to do everything he can to better our position in the world.”

Let’s not let a musician of this excellence be forgotten!

Where to go next:

Equipose is on Spotify and Apple Music. Listen and enjoy! The rest of the album is wonderful. Musa Ancestral Steams is one of the most impressive solo piano sets. It’s not on the streaming services, but Acoustic Sounds is coming out with a new vinyl pressing in February 2021. Exciting! If you don’t have an LP player, you can listen to the whole album on You Tube here.

Cowell’s 1960’s and 1970’s discography with trumpet player Charles Tolliver is fantastic. Start with Max Roach’s Member’s Don’t Get Weary (1968), which features both Cowell and Tolliver. It’s on Spotify and Apple Music. Cowell and Tolliver started their own record label, Strata East, and put out the exuberant Music Inc. which features Tolliver’s intense big band, but also a lot of terrific Cowell solos. It’s not on the streaming services, but it will also be reissued in vinyl, and there’s You Tube of course.

After the heady recordings of the 1970’s, Cowell quietly recorded one great album after another for the Danish Steeplechase label, including his last release, a live date from 2019, Live at Keystone Korner Baltimore. They are all on Spotify and Apple Music, where you have access listened to them all – they sound great! The early nineties seems to have been especially strong with Departure #2 (1990), Games (1991), Bright Passion (1993), but I’m still listening and will report back.

If you have a favorite Stanley Cowell record, leave a comment – the beauty of this music should be heard by all.

Seize The Rainbow
(Enemy EMY 104)
Sonny Sharrock – Guitar; Melvin Gibbs – Bass; Pheeroan Aklaff – Drums; Abe Speller – Drums

My Song

The Past Adventures Of Zydeco Honeycup

Sheraserhead’s High-Top Sneakers

For those who think jazz is effete or needlessly intellectual, listen to Sonny Sharrock. Sharrock plays with the language of an omnivore – Blues, Jazz, Rock, Metal plus an electrifying spontaneity, all deployed within a master’s command of structure. His playing does not fall into any narrow pigeon holes. Unfortunately, the world does not have enough Sharrock to listen to – his discography is terribly small due to lack of economic opportunities that prevented him from recording. Maybe if experimental music had been more viable, Sharrock’s work in the 1960’s would have been the springboard to a higher profile in music making. His career started with a lot of exposure as a sideman – highlights are appearances on Pharoah Sanders’ Tauhid (1966), on a Wayne Shorter record (Super Nova, 1969), on a significant though uncredited appearance on Miles Davis’ Tribute to Jack Johnson, and a regular gig that paid the bills with the popular Herbie Mann. This sideman activity was followed by the opportunity to record under his own name on 1969’s Black Woman. All these recordings show Sharrock’s potential, but did not give space for Sharrock and his guitar work to take center stage. By the early 1970’s it seemed like things were set up for a definitive Sonny Sharrock record, but the floor fell out on opportunities in experimental music. By 1975 Sharrock quit music altogether, and spent the rest of the decade earning a living away from music by taking care of disabled children and driving a cab.

Sonny Sharrock may have ended up being only a footnote in music history, but fortunately the bassist and producer Bill Laswell coaxed Sharrock out of retirement to appear on a minor classic of early 80’s New York ‘No Wave’, 1981’s Memory Serves. From there Sharrock thankfully was able to record again and again in the 1980’s – Sharrock stated in a 1991 interview that “the last five years have been pretty strange for me, because I went twelve years without making a record at all, and then in the last five years, I’ve made seven records under my own name. That’s pretty strange.”

One of the best from this bumper crop is Seize the Rainbow, recorded and released in 1987. This record was released under the “Sonny Sharrock Band”, putting the emphasis on the musicians who give Sonny Sharrock’s guitar the support it deserves – Melvin Gibbs plays always supportive but quite inventive bass lines, and the rhythm is driven by two drummers in tandem – Pheeroan Aklaff and Abe Speller. The result is a powerful and convincing record and a highlight of Sharrock’s discography. Melvin Gibbs, interviewed by Hank Shtreamer, emphasizes the range of the music:

“He was exploring all of those things: He would explore a really beautiful sound and then kind of crash it. And then he could take the crash thing and show you how to bring it back. I can’t say enough good things about Sonny, as far as what he was doing musically, in terms of the emotional continuum. I mean, the whole point of heavy metal is you’re trying to get a certain emotional energy across, and you need to explore a certain set of sounds to get that emotional energy across. And because Sonny’s music covered such a wide emotional area, I was able to throw a whole bunch of stuff in there that might have seemed out of context in other circumstances, and he was very supportive of that.”

The standout song of the album is undoubtedly ‘My Song”, a showcase for a moving Sharrock guitar solo. It’s an ABACC 40 bar form. Sharrock’s emphasis on melody is an overlooked aspect of this playing, and his simple phasing of the melody in the first chorus of his solo is a prime example. It is not until the third chorus of his solo that Sharrock really lets loose, and the results are unforgettable – after playing low feedback before the bridge of the 3rd chorus, he plays a soaring pattern with deft support from Gibbs. It’s astonishing and powerful. The track fades out after Sharrock’s’ solo – there’s nothing left the other members of the band to say after this statement!

“The Past Adventures Of Zydeco Honeycup” is a tribute to Professor Longhair based on Longhair’s tune Tipitina. It emphasizes Sharrock’s connection to tradition. The song has a straightforward structure. The guitar solo builds to a climax that shows off Sharrock’s terrific note placement and uses sustained notes to great effect.

“Sheraserhead’s High-Top Sneakers” might feel like and end session throw away recorded to fill out the record. Indeed, Gibbs testifies to the expedited way the session went – he states that “We couldn’t have spent more than two hours recording.” So what’s so good about this tune that I should bring it to your attention? The audibly quick pace of the recording brings out a looseness and cohesion to the group sound that justifies the album titles moniker that this is the “Sonny Sharrock Band.” The duel drum sound is especially locked in here – this would have been great to hear live! Sharrock’s intense guitar sound is amazing, of course.

Unfortunately the excellence of this album is an unfulfilled promise. Three years later Sharrock recorded his oft cited masterpiece, Ask the Ages (check it out, please!), and after that spent time on the road. In 1994 Sharrock was taken from us from a heart attack at age 52. The tracks I’ve posted hint at what great music we may have heard had he lived.

I’ll leave you with words of wisdom from a master. Not enough is made of the intellect that comes hand in hand with the ability to create great improvised music. When you listen to interviews with Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins their depth of thought and open mindedness comes through clearly. Although there are less interviews with Sonny Sharrock, he displays those same deep qualities in the spoken word. Speaking to Guitar Player about the nature of improvisation, Sharrock gave advice to players which equally describes his playing: “Remember that your improvisation must have feeling. It must swing and it must have beauty, be it the fragile beauty of a snowflake or the terrible beauty of an erupting volcano. Beauty–no matter how disturbing or how still–is always true. Don’t be afraid to let go of the things you know. Defy your weaker, safer self. Create. Make music.”

Today is the 103rd anniversary of Thelonious Monk’s birth. Monk changed music forever with his fantastic (and catchy!) compositions as well as his unique approach to music and stubborn dedication. He’s forever an inspiration for those who give their lives to an idea, a craft, or a vision. And Monk won in the end – there is no other composer from the mid 20th century whose music has been so influential. To celebrate this influence I’m posting some of my favorite covers of Monk’s songs, with my thoughts about the performance. It’s Monk’s time!

Bye-Ya
Jane Bunnett-Don Pullen
New York Duets (Music and Arts, 1990)
Jane Bunnett – soprano sax, Don Pullen – piano

A spirited performance of a very fun tune! Bunnett gives three choruses that build logically, with great sound and spontaneity. Pullen is typically outrageous and amazing. His incredible rhythmic strength is a perfect match for playing Monk. Fortunately, there’s more of a same on Pullen Plays Monk, which is highly recommended. More from Pullen on this site soon! He’s one of my all time favorites.

Monk’s Mood
Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition
Album Album (ECM, 1984)
Jack DeJohnette – Synthesizer and drums, David Murray – Tenor Saxophone, John Purcell – Alto Saxophone, Howard Johnson – Baritone Saxophone

There are lots of great covers of Monk’s Mood, one of the composer’s most memorable pieces. This one stands out to me for it’s interesting arrangment, which obviously owes a lot to the World Saxophone Quartet (the synthesizer fills in for the fourth horn). I wonder how much credit goes to Murray? No matter who’s responsible, this performance holds up.

Rhythm-A-Ning
Cedar Walton
The Maestro (Muse, 1981)
Cedar Walton – piano, Bob Berg – tenor saxophone, David Williams – bass, Billy Higgins – drums

Walton used Rhythm-A-Ning as a burning vehicle, and this performance really shows off the strength of this band. Berg eats up the changes in his exciting solo. The real star though, is the marvelous togetherness of the trio behind Berg. Even at this blistering tempo, Walton, Williams and Higgins somehow sound relaxed, and play the accents of this arrangement with a startling group precision.

Brake’s Sake
Ben Riley’s Monk Legacy Septet
Memories of T (Concord, 2006)
Ben Riley: drums; Don Sickler: trumpet and arrangement; Bruce Williams: alto saxophone, Jimmy Greene: tenor saxophone, Jay Brandford: baritone saxophone; Freddie Bryant: guitar, Peter Washington: bass

From the best Monk tribute not by Steve Lacy, the pianoless arrangements capture Monk’s wittiness and rhythmic propulsion. The musicians here all rise to the challenge – each of the solos sparkle. Riley – Monk’s drummer through the 60’s – contributes playing that is subtle and amazing.

We See
Ellery Eskelin
The Secret Museum (Hatology, 2000)
Ellery Eskelin – Tenor Saxophone, Andrea Parkins – Accordion, Jim Black – Drums

I just had to include this crazy performance! It’s an absurd rave up/deconstruction of Monk’s tune. There’s nothing else like it.

Hornin’ In
Sphere
Sphere (1998, Verve)
Kenny Barron – Piano, Gary Bartz – Alto Saxophone, Buster Williams – Bass, Ben Riley – Drums

This performance is a refined contrast to the raucous Eskelin track above. The group Sphere was dedicated to making Monks’ tunes part of the repertory, and the elan displayed on this, one of Monk most difficult compositions, shows the result of that dedication. Barron’s solo in particular is fantastic!

In Walked Bud
Steve Lacy Four
Morning Joy: Live at Sunset Paris (Hatology, 1989)
Steve Lacy – Soprano Saxophone, Steve Potts – Alto Saxophone, Jean-Jacques Avenal – bass, Oliver Johnson – drums

When Monk’s reputation was in obscurity in the 1950’s, one of his acolytes was Steve Lacy, who formed a band with Roswell Rudd that played nothing but Monk tunes (captured on the album School Days). Even after Lacy developed into a distinctive composer and concentrated on the performing his own tunes, he continued to carry the Monk torch. Recorded at the Sunset Paris club in 1986, the band is really on fire. The way that Lacy and Potts play unison lines is really special, and the support from Avenal and Johnson is stellar. It’s a shame that you can hear there’s maybe a dozen people in the audience – a fate that Monk had to contend with as well. May our heroes always have an audience to appreciate their art!

James Koblin