FARUQ Z. BEY/NORTHWOODS IMPROVISERS

Auzar
Entropy Stereo ESR015

Uniting again for their strongest session yet, two of Michigan’s avant-jazz standard bearers prove that bedrock freeform and modal musics still flourish in the Motor City.

More to the point, AUZAR confirms the full integration of saxophonist/composer Faruq Z. Bey, founder of the seminal Detroit-based Griot Galaxy, with the less urban-oriented Northwoods Improvisers (NI) collective. Formed almost 30 years ago as totally collective electro-acoustic music makers NI banished non-acoustic instruments in 1980 and has had shifting personnel.

Over the years founding members vibraphonist/marimba player Mike Gilmore, and bassist/artist/broadcaster Mike Johnston have expanded the NI concept. Early on, the two were joined by Indianapolis-based drummer Nick Ashton. Later, tenor saxophonist/bass clarinetist Mike Carey, a member of several Detroit-based ensembles; and tenor saxophonist Skeeter Shelton, probably the only man to simultaneously be part of the Griot Galaxy and the 70th Division Army Reserve band, became NIers. The partnership with Bey has flourished since 2000.

Recorded live, the band’s performances get better as each subsequent track arrives – the session is probably presented in the order in which it was recorded. Climax is reached with Johnston’s almost 14½-minute “Vines” and Bey’s more than 11-minute title track.

The later is particularly descriptive since it matches Tranesque cadences from one tenor saxophonist – probably Bey – with the harder, harsher tone of another – perhaps Skelton. Gliding from freebop to free jazz with cascading triple counterpoint from the horns, Ashton’s bounces and Gilmore’s vibe color resemble one of those 1960s Archie Shepp dates with Bobby Hutcherson.

“Vines”, on the other hand, contrasts pace-quickening rhythms from the vibes and drums with echoing broken octaves from the horns. With the Latinesque percussion producing cross pulses while maintaining the beat, the horns create a do-se-do of extended harmonies. One horn sticks to straightahead cadences and obbligatos while the other squeezes out vaguely Arabic-feeling modal sounds, accompanied by scraped friction from the vibes.

Around these tunes the band keeps improvisations in parameters reminiscent of unforced free jazz. Contrapuntal braying and pitch vibrations from the saxes are inclined to turn into call-and-response patterns. Meanwhile, for his part, the bassist is able to advance the proceedings with a slithering ostinato as with double-stroking sul ponicello runs, while Ashton varies his beats from Free Jazz bounces to flams and cymbal pressure from the bop camp.

Two of the reedists also pay homage to Eric Dolphy. Bey’s squealing, flutter- tonguing on alto recalls the late reedman, as do Carey’s skulking bass clarinet runs. Another piece has a herky-jerky Ornette Coleman-style head. Still for all the Woody Woodpecker-like reed spitting and sound shard ejaculations, the band doesn’t neglect unison riffing, mellow modulations on various themes and even the odd languid exposition.

CD’s such as this one prove that Detroit’s – or should it be Michigan’s? – jazz heyday is far from over.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Gemini 2. Zychron 3. Isolation 4. Vines 5. Auzar (Osiris) 6. The call

Personnel: Faruq Z. Bey (alto and tenor saxophones); Mike Carey (tenor saxophone and bass clarinet); Skeeter Shelton (tenor saxophone); Mike Gilmore (vibes and marimba); Mike Johnston (bass); Nick Ashton (drums)

May 30, 2005

FARUQ Z. BEY & THE NORTHWOODS IMPROVISERS

19 Moons
Entropy Stereo ESR 011

Detroit Jazz is usually associated with that time in the mid-1950s when enough powerful musicians, including drummer Elvin Jones, pianist Tommy Flanagan and trumpeter Donald Byrd, suddenly stormed out of that city to populate nearly every major hard bop aggregation.

But the city’s improvisational history runs deeper than that, dating from the pioneering work of big bands like McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and Jean Goldkette’s in the 1920s to contemporary stars like tenorman James Carter and violinist Regina Carter.

Behind these national figures, though, was another group content to stay home, expand the scene and nurture younger talent. Featured soloist on this disc is one of those men, saxophonist/poet Faruq Z. Bey. Known in the 1970s and 1980s as one of the guiding forces in the sci-fi jazz outfit Griot Galaxy, with its echoes of the Arkestra and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, his sidemen included bassist Jaribu Shahid and drummer Tani Tabbal, best known for their work with Carter.

Now, after a protracted silence caused by a serious accident among other problems, he’s reemerged with this fine CD. Interestingly enough, while most of the compositions here are his, his collaborators aren’t Detroiters, but members of a longtime improv trio from Central Michigan, The Northwoods Improvisers.

Together for almost 20 years and having evolved from an alternate rock band, the three pinpoint a significant international trend: the existence of small pockets of improvisers in all sorts of unlikely places. At the same time, after a few albums on their own and an appearance at the Montreux/Detroit Festival, this concert CD is in no way cast as a meeting of a master with his disciples. Everyone is on equal musical footing, and bassist Mike Johnston even contributes one tune and wrote another with Bey. Throughout, vibist Mike Gilmore emerges as the second featured soloist after Bey, frequently fabricating a countermelody to his improvisations.

At the same time, the session is definitely cast in mould that recalls the exploratory ethos of the 1970s typified by John Coltrane’s later work as well as Pharoah Sanders and Albert Ayler then revolutionary thrusts. Alyer is honored with a Bey poem in the booklet and by Johnston’s gospelish composition of the same name. Given a certain lightness from Gilmore’s vibes, Bey uses multiphonics here, but his piece is far different -- and in some ways more conventional -- then Ayler’s. At times, in fact, it sounds as if he’s playing “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” in the midst of his reed-biting solo.

True to the nature of deeper Detroit jazz though, there’s a connection to the tradition as well on Bey’s “After Death”, whose strange title may refer to his accident. Begun in the tenorist’s best Archie Shepp-out-of-Ben Webster breathy choruses, it soon develops a striding show tune lope, helped not a little by the inventive drumming of Nick Ashton, who simultaneously sounds as if he’s playing a regular kit and the congas. Gilmore’s four-mallet work allows him to devise many more tones, suggesting what would have happened had Tito Puente recorded with Trane.

Spiritually oriented dignity is the order of the day, however, especially when the band is expanded by Len Bukowski’s contra alto clarinet on three tracks and Patrick Boyer’s tambura on one. That piece, “Fountain” links the uncommon, protracted buzzing produced by those two instruments to straightforward bass and drum patterns underneath, as Bey embarks on a time-suspending saxophone flight. Then, on the title tune, a vibes and bowed bass intro gives way to reverberating, practically earth-shaking continuo courtesy of Bukowski and Johnston. When the melody changes once again to a slinky, pivoting outline, heavy on the walking bass, Bey adds enough irregular vibrato and flutter tonguing in keep the tone elevated.

It’s been more than 19 moons that Bey has been represented on disc. This session is doubly valuable however. For not only does it showcase an important, undercelebrated local improviser, but it’s also the newest status report on another unique group of musicians.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Fountain*+ 2. After Death 3. Mamaka II 3. Ayler 5. Moors 6. 19 Moons*

Personnel: Faruq Z. Bey (alto and tenor saxophone); Len Bukowski (contra alto clarinet)*; Mike Gilmore (vibes, bone guitar); Patrick Boyer (tambura)+; Mike Johnston (bass); Nick Ashton (drums)

March 1, 2002