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Reviews that mention Mongezi Feza

Blue Notes

The Ogun Collection
Ogun OGCD 024, 025, 026, 027 & 028

What regretfully could be subtitled Tale of the Incredible Shrinking Band, this box set collects five CDs by the Blue Notes, arguable the best jazz band to emerge fully formed from Apartheid-era South Africa.

Consisting of sessions recorded from 1964 to 1987, the set traces the band’s evolution from a six-man boppish combo to a smaller group, which energized European – especially British – jazz by intermixing African rhythms and melodies, Hard Bop styling plus emerging Free Music. Leaving aside the first disc, Legacy: live in South Afrika 1964, the other CDs are necessarily reductive. That’s because after pianist and Blue Note leader Chris McGregor organized the Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) big band in 1970, other original Blue Notes left the enlarged group for their own projects for greater or lesser periods. Subsequently the remaining originals only regrouped for one/off gigs such as 1977’s Blue Notes in Concert, or sadly to honor deceased comrades. Blue Notes for Mongezi dates from 1975, and captures most of the 3½ hour improvised threnody the others played to honor trumpeter Mongezi Feza who died suddenly at 30. Finally Blue Notes for Johnny dates from 1987, following a similar post-funeral session by the remaining trio marking bassist Johnny Dyani’s death at 40.

During 1990 McGregor died at 53, as did alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana at 41. Now 69, drummer Louis Moholo returned to post-Apartheid South Africa in1995 and works from there in Europe and elsewhere.

While the seven tracks on Legacy chug along nicely with foot-tapping rhythms and expose a series of high class solos from the original five plus tenor saxophonist Nick Moyake, its paramount interest is historical. To put it bluntly, the band recorded in Durban in 1964 was then merely a high-quality Hard Bop combo. The entire set is firmly anchored in the school of players being recorded by the band’s namesake record company – Blue Note – and almost completely beholden to the genre’s defining ensemble: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Although McGregor and Moholo were respectively a little smoother or more constrained in their playing then their American opposite numbers – Bobby Timmons and Blakey himself – the front line was fully in Messengers thrall. Feza, who was only 19 at the time, moved between Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard; Pukwana referenced Jackie McLean and Cannonball Adderley; while Beer’s playing – featured on “I Cover the Waterfront” – harkened back to Dexter Gordon and Illinois Jacquet – when he wasn’t being Hank Mobley.

There was nothing wrong with copying the best. But there were already numberless groups playing the same way in Paris, in Toronto, in Montreal, in Berlin, in London and in every city in the United States. Frankly, the most impressive part of the CD is that most of the material is original, composed either by McGregor or Pukwana. But even here, echoes of the original American themes and solos peek through the melodies. As a matter of fact, the altoist’s “Dorkay House” sounds more like one of those Lionel Hampton-styled pre-R&B numbers from the late 1940s than anything more recent.

Relocation in the United Kingdom and prolonged exposure to new music of the free improvisers was, paradoxically, one of the best things that could have happened to these exiled players. Not only did they mix with the very best British and Continental players, but the subsequent groups they were involved with – very definitely including McGregor’s BOB – intermingled Township and kwela pulses and measures in a way that gained wide acceptance on the jazz scene. However the Blue Note’s core band members also became involved in other projects, with the bassist especially moving away from the others.

Feza’s unexpected death in 1975 brought the original Blue Notes together for the two-CD Blue Notes for Mongezi session. Despite its initial rehearsal room sound, it’s instructive to note how the subsequent decade of playing has redefined every musician as his own man. Like Dave Burrell, McGregor evidently internalized the stabbing feints and contrasting dynamics of Cecil Taylor, while maintaining the long-lined comping, architectural cadenzas and high frequency runs of earlier stylists such as Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington.

Moholo is now more overtly rhythmic and aggressive, and has added blunt backbeat strokes, cymbal scrapes, bell-tree rattles plus abrasive friction and vibrations from miscellaneous percussion to his playing stance. Also energized is Dyani, who was more-or-less simply a timekeeper in Durban. He has developed a slippery, upfront style which moves in-and-out of tempo as he walks, slaps and vibrates his strings. Furthermore the mixture of English, Xhosa, Zulu and nonsense syllables he vocalizes during the four long selections occupies an uneasy position between call-and-response Baptist preaching, psychedelic scat singing and prototype Rap.

Pukwana occasionally joins in vocally as well, but his mature style is more notable for the slide-whistle shrills he uses to punctuate the numbers. Now completely divorced from his earlier influences, the alto man now combines, moderato flutter-tonguing and peeping altissimo cries as well as thematic quotes, melody integration and chalumeau reed bites and slurs. His alto saxophone precedent isn’t Ornette Coleman’s breakthroughs, but the tradition extension of someone like Eric Dolphy.

There are even points such as his wriggling obbligato response to Dyani’s preaching on “Blue Notes for Mongezi: third movement” that Pukwana’s horn takes the place of an entire testifying congregation. Additionally, because the session was organized as an ad hoc memorial to Feza, the four go through the equivalent of stream-of-consciousness playing, moving from theme to theme, melody to melody and phrase to phrase. Into the mix they toss everything from suggestions of Church of England hymns, kwela dance rhythms, refined, Ellington-reflecting tone poems – heavy on piano chording – and out-and-out primitivist R&B. McGregor’s hard chordal runs, Moholo’s bounces and flams, Dyani’s consistent pulse and Pukwana’s slide-slipping split tones and cries share the upfront space.

Less than two years later, Blue Notes in Concert – a quartet reunion at London’s 100 Club – finds the rhythm section fading into the background and Pukwana and McGregor more upfront. At certain junctures the back-and-forth teamwork suggests earlier simpatico pairing such as Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond or Thelonious Monk and Charlie Rouse, but the suspicion remains that the four are beginning to feel the pressure of trying to replicate with one horn arrangements created for two, three or more. There’s also certain listlessness to the rhythm, a perception fed by the fact that Dyani had moved to the Continent, and had been operating more-or-less separately from the others since 1971.

McGregor relies more on cyclical swirls and patterning than formerly. He’s also comping as much as possible with connective fills, intent to plug the many holes which are evident throughout and avoid the awkwardness of uncoordinated silences. Pukwana’s pitch too may have become more astringent and irregular, but he never abandons his Hard Bop underpinnings so that variations on the heads seem nearly endless.

The proceedings pick up considerably when the traditional “Kudala” is played. Given a foot tapping beat from Moholo’s cow bell strokes and Dyani’s thumps, tension is brought to a boil and pushed into bravado shape with ornamental vamps from the front line. Eventually the interpolation of Gary Windo’s “Funky Boots”, a BOB staple, rouses the playing enough so that the quartet draws audience applause.

Oddly – but more hopefully – a reunion of the remaining trio of Blue Notes a decade later signals a return to bravura form and commitment, which might result from McGregor, Pukwana and Moholo’s realization that with Dyani’s death, the band was more history than promise. Within the confines of the broken octave expositions, the harmonization and rhythmic thrust belie the combo’s size.

Playing soprano as well as alto saxophone – simultaneously at points, it seems – Pukwana works up a full head of steam, often getting distinct, overlapping timbres from each horn. McGregor contributes fast-paced glissandi and intermezzo patterns, while Moholo’s percussion implements extend to slide whistle, kazoo, ocarina – the better to interact with the saxophonist’s sandpaper rough tone.

Celebratory rather than dirge-like, the results seem to reference more than the Blue Notes’ past, especially when “Monks & Mbizo” and “Ithi GTqi/Nkosi Sikelee” – the penultimate and final track of the original session appear. Added to the expected African, gospel and Bop references are those from earlier jazz. At least McGregor’s arm-extended, pre-modern syncopation starts to resemble Pete Johnson and Meade Lox Lewis’ stylings and Pukwana’s nagging vibrato is almost as wide as Sidney Bechet’s.

Moholo may be channeling Baby Dodds at this point, and is soon mumbling invective or regret as well as well as whacking cymbals and small bells with a wire whisk, bouncing his snare and thumping the bass drum. Ostensibly wrapping up with a Dyani composition and a traditional song, the three bring the verisimilitude of wide intervals and crying cross tones they’ve been exploring earlier forward.

This old timey-modern exposition which mixes cries of pain with harsh intensity seems to bring Pukwana back to the Jackie McLean echoes he expressed on Legacy and similarly reintroduce the high frequency cadenzas related to Bobby Timmons McGregor exhibited at that time. Luckily Moholo’s powerful opposite sticking keeps the backbeat groove on track. The finale blends piano fills, reed brays and percussion kerplunk into an anthemic conclusion and proper celebration for a comrade.

Confirming the Blue Notes absolute and irrefutable dissolution, this boxed set still leaves us with many examples of the skill and excitement the band exhibited in its time.

-- Ken Waxman

OGCD 024: Blue Notes - Legacy: live in South Afrika 1964

Track Listing: Legacy: 1. Now 2. Coming home 3. I Cover the Waterfront 4. Two for Sandl 5. Vortex Special 6. B My Dear 7. Dorkay House

Personnel: Legacy: Mongezi Feza (trumpet); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Nick Moyake (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

OGCD 025/026: Blue Notes for Mongezi

Track Listing: Blue: 1. Blue Notes for Mongezi: first movement 2. Blue Notes for Mongezi: second movement 3. Blue Notes for Mongezi: third movement 4. Blue Notes for Mongezi: fourth movement

Personnel: Blue: Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone, whistle, percussion and voice); Chris McGregor (piano and percussion); Johnny Dyani (bass, bell and voice) and Louis Moholo (drums, percussion and voice)

OGCD 027: Blue Notes in Concert

Track Listing: Concert: 1. Iizwi/Msenge Mabelelo 2. Nqamakwe 3. Manje/Funky Boots 4.We Nduna 5. Kudala [Long ago]/Funky boots 6. Mama Ndoluse/Abalimanga

Personnel: Concert: Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

OGCD 028: Blue Notes for Johnny

Track Listing: Johnny: 1. Funk Dem Dudu/To Erico 2. Eyomzi 3. Ntyilo Ntyilo 4. Blues for Nick 5. Monks & Mbizo 6. Ithi GTqi/Nkosi Sikelee L'Afrika 7. Funk Dem Dudu 8. Eyomzi 9. Funk Dem Dudu/To Erico

Personnel: Johnny: Dudu Pukwana (alto and soprano saxophones); Chris McGregor (piano) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

July 8, 2009

The Chris McGregor Group

Very Urgent
Fledg'ling Records FD-3059

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Brotherhood

Fledg'ling Records FD-3063

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Fledg'ling Records FD-3062

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Eclipse At Dawn

Cuneiform Rune 262

Nearly 20 years after his death the musical importance of South African-born, pianist Chris McGregor and his pioneering multi-cultural big band Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) that operated both in the United Kingdom and the Continent is being repeatedly reconfirmed.

As these four recent CDs demonstrate, McGregor and his constantly shifting cast of musical characters were, especially during the early 1970s, involved in creating a third synthesis of sound. Newly arrived from South Africa, the sextet featured on Very Urgent – actually the inter-racial Blue Notes band that was forced to leave its Apartheid-ridden homeland a couple of years earlier – began by mixing a variant of Freebop with its native Kwela Township rhythms. A further sonic variant is more prominent on the other three CDs however – including the somewhat lo-fi, newly discovered live session, Eclipse at Dawn.

Expanding the Blue Notes to big band status – the pianist recruited most of the section men from the more raucous ranks of Britain’s burgeoning Free Jazz movement – BOB’s soloists’ frame of reference became Energy Music and Free Improv. This modulation was then was grafted onto the big band styling and Africanized beats that the band already projected. Finally with BOB introducing African instruments as well as themes to its program, a unique improv variant of so-called World Music was slouching towards birth with the group’s CDs.

There is impressive work throughout this series of discs, which can be divided chronologically and almost geographically. The 1968 combo work is separate from the big band(s) on the other CDs, while Eclipse at Dawn, recorded live in Berlin, allows the listener to compare extended live versions of some of the tunes recorded in the studio sessions that make up Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath and Brotherhood.

By 1968, another South African exile, tenor saxophonist Ronnie Beer had joined the original Blue Notes – trumpeter Mongezi Feza, alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, bassist Johnny Dyani and drummer Louis Moholo, plus McGregor. But the added horn only intensified the band’s resemblance to such Hard Bop combs of the day as The Jazz Messengers. As a matter of fact, with McGregor’s key splintering in a Monkish fashion throughout, Very Urgent could be a Mod-Era British younger cousin to Atlantic’s Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk.

On these tunes, Dyani is still walking, McGregor outputs off-side fills, when he isn’t pounding on the keys, while on “Marie My Dear” – note the Monk homage in the title– Moholo’s regulation pops and scuffs derive from Blakey’s style, while Feza’s brassy asides and rasping triplets relate to the work of Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan.

Unlike the Messengers, the combo does play around with more abrupt tempo changes, not to mention polyphonic harmonies on “Don’t Stir the Beehive”. Plus the compositions curiously wavering, almost off-key heads often reflect McGregor’s background in Methodist hymns and Africa chants more than Afro-American Baptist church music. But when the soloists open up, as Feza does with bugle calls and rooster crows on “Heart’s Vibrations” and Pukwana does throughout with Tranesque, contrapuntal trilling, the parallel are still bop – admittedly Free Bop not Hard Bop – but at the same place in history as their American cousins. While the strength of the sounds isn’t compromised, the compositions of McGregor and others get a more notable showcase on the BOB CDs.

Minus Feza, the band on Eclipse numbers 11, but with Barbados-born trumpeter Harry Beckett added, and another South African-in-exile, Harry Miller in the bass chair. Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, with Beer still on board, adds John Surman on soprano and baritone saxophone, Mike Osborne on alto saxophone and Beckett among others. Brotherhood is by a 12-piece group, including tenor saxophonist Gary Windo, who with trombonist Nick Evans contributed the “Funky Boots March”, which closes both that session and the live date from Berlin.

Slightly shorter than one minute with a parade-ground beat from Moholo, slide- whistle shrills from the reeds and a brassy fortissimo lead from that sounds like a piccolo trumpet, both performances are pretty much the same. Elsewhere however, the live situation allows BOB to stretch out on a couple of Pukwana lines “Nick Tete” and “Do It” which are also on Brotherhood; as well as on “The Bride”, which is poked and prodded for more than twice the length of time than the version on Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath.

In Berlin, the sound is also slightly distant – especially when it comes to Miller’s bass part – although there’s plenty of room for Pukwana’s improvisations. Moving from spetrofluctuation and glossolalia with emphasized squeaks, spikes and multiphonics on “The Bride”, the altoist demonstrates that his time-sense was sufficiently “free” to break apart a theme that was brand-new at the time. Expanding and inflating the melody, Pukwana soon has trombonist Malcolm Griffin double-tonguing and fluttering, with fellow bone man Nick Evans adding pointed fills behind both. Soon enough the tempo turns staccato and more intense without losing traditional big band-styled call-and-response from the individual sections, only to be nearly blown apart to fragments by Windo’s Aylerian screeching and hocketing lines.

The brassy postlude, encompassing contrapuntal vamps from the horns plus Moholo’s smashes and rough ruffs are present in the studio version as well. But this “Bride” is betrothed to Surman and McGregor. Both more African-sounding as well as more closely wedded to jazz, this variation includes the pianist’s fantasia of circular contrasting lines, as well as Surman’s piercing and breathy soprano saxophone augmentations. The British saxophonist, who would eventually drift away from such forceful soloing, reed-bites, tongue-stops and centres himself with straining altissimo as he plays. Yet as opposed to more original ideas from Windo and Pukwana on the live version, he appears very much in thrall to John Coltrane’s and Eric Dolphy’s influences.

On the different, earlier CD, the studio version of “Nick Tete” also seems to relate more closely to expected big-band sounds – as well as adding Calypso and Kwela echoes – than it does in Berlin. McGregor fans the keys; Pukwana adds honks and slides to his solo, but despite double-tonguing, Feza’s lead theme variation is only slightly left of centre.

Live however, “Nick Tete” climaxes with mass cacophony that bleeds right into the following track – McGregor’s appropriately title “Restless”. This postlude is carried along on a series of glissandi, then staccato pops from the composer, coupled with spectacular triple-stopping pulses from Miller. That tune ends with contrapuntal and antiphonal screams, peeps and sighs from the horns, although the scene had been set by “Nick Tete”. Its finale involves alternating ascending and descending harsh cross cries from the band as Moholo ruffs and bounces, and Beckett and Pukwana gradually shred the theme with vamping counterpoint. This follows section work that manages to keep the theme danceable while expressing it in adjacent keys and pitches, begins with Pukwana again showing his command of the material which he dissolves into split tones.

As for “Do It”, BOB does it live with a nearly symphonic overture of cross timbres from the brass and reeds. However the tune becomes even freer and more agitated during Alan Skidmore’s tenor saxophone solo that encompasses double, triple and flutter-tonguing and finger vibrato. Downside is the muddy recording which makes it sound as if McGregor is playing a tinny electric piano.

High frequency piano chording on the studio version of “Do It” – which is actually longer than the live version – confirms that McGregor’s piano is acoustic. Here the composition is layered with portamento high brass, mid-range trombone spurts, higher-pitched reeds and basso reeds lines. Together these sound tiers provide the tonal coloration upon which Feza’s improvisation depends as he uses lip flutters and percussive spits to limn the melody. When the theme shifts to piano comping, additional tinctures appear as Miller takes a contrapuntal bass solo.

Eclipse at Dawn’s other surprise is its title track, composed by Abdullah Ibrahim, anther South African exile who followed a parallel, but completely separate musical route to McGregor’s. On this nocturne, the Ellingtonian echoes which are mostly masked in McGregor’s own writing for the band come to the fore. Atmospheric in execution, Evans’ Lawrence Brown-like theme statement is in this context almost excessively formalist, with only sul ponticello asides from Miller keeping it from sounding overtly legato. Osborne’s split-tone response to Evans’ theme elaboration is abrasive, yet definitely Free Bop rather than Free Jazz. Still in context it sounds wildly “outside”, even though his cries ornament and color rather than reconstitute the melody.

Overall, the most memorable track on these BOB CDs is Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath’s “Night Poem”. A rare excursion into program music by McGregor, the nearly 21½-minute track is a definite funky precursor to World Music exoticism, since the composer plays African xylophone – which at points sounds like a kalimba – as much as piano, with Beer and Feza both featured on Indian flutes. Moholo adds some bell shaking, but happily the African echoes are soon subsumed by a steady andante pulse, curvaceously toughened by Miller four-square plucks. Pushing the fragile flute sound aside, plunger trombone lines and sandpaper-rough tenor saxophone spews – probably from Skidmore – move the theme to the horns and penultimately to a brass choir. With trumpets and trombones adding contrapuntal ornamentation and Moholo a discontinuous beat, the theme becomes tough enough to end with drum top smacks that aurally overshadow a final flute peep.

Introducing a tough Africanized sensibility to big band music and mixing it with the solo strengths of emerging Free Jazz is McGregor and the BOB’s lasting legacy. The value of these CDs is that on any of them you can experience these qualities expressed in high-class music and sound.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Urgent: 1. Marie My Dear/Travelling Somewhere 2. Heart’s Vibration 3. The Sound's Begin Again/White Lies 4. Don't Stir the Beehive

Personnel: Urgent: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Brotherhood: 1. Nick Tete 2. Joyful Noise 3. Think of Something 4. Do It 5. Funky Boots March

Personnel: Brotherhood: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Breath: 1. MRA 2. Davashe's Dream 3. Bride 4. Andromeda 5. Night Poem 6. Union Special

Personnel: Breath: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); John Surman (soprano and baritone saxophones); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone and Indian flute); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano and African xylophone); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Eclipse: 1. Introduction by Ronnie Scott 2. Nick Tete 3. Restless 4. Do It 5. Eclipse at Dawn 6. The Bride 7. Now 8. Funky Boots March 9. Ronnie Scott and Chris McGregor Sendoff and Applause

Personnel: Eclipse: Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana and Mike Osborne (alto saxophones); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

September 18, 2008

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Eclipse At Dawn
Cuneiform Rune 262

The Chris McGregor Group

Very Urgent

Fledg'ling Records FD-3059

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Brotherhood

Fledg'ling Records FD-3063

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Fledg'ling Records FD-3062

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Urgent: 1. Marie My Dear/Travelling Somewhere 2. Heart’s Vibration 3. The Sound's Begin Again/White Lies 4. Don't Stir the Beehive

Personnel: Urgent: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Brotherhood: 1. Nick Tete 2. Joyful Noise 3. Think of Something 4. Do It 5. Funky Boots March

Track Listing: Breath: 1. MRA 2. Davashe's Dream 3. Bride 4. Andromeda 5. Night Poem 6. Union Special

September 18, 2008

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Brotherhood
Fledg'ling Records FD-3063

The Chris McGregor Group

Very Urgent

Fledg'ling Records FD-3059

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Fledg'ling Records FD-3062

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Eclipse At Dawn

Cuneiform Rune 262

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Urgent: 1. Marie My Dear/Travelling Somewhere 2. Heart’s Vibration 3. The Sound's Begin Again/White Lies 4. Don't Stir the Beehive

Personnel: Urgent: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Brotherhood: 1. Nick Tete 2. Joyful Noise 3. Think of Something 4. Do It 5. Funky Boots March

Track Listing: Breath: 1. MRA 2. Davashe's Dream 3. Bride 4. Andromeda 5. Night Poem 6. Union Special

September 18, 2008

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath
Fledg'ling Records FD-3062

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Brotherhood

Fledg'ling Records FD-3063

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Eclipse At Dawn

Cuneiform Rune 262

The Chris McGregor Group

Very Urgent

Fledg'ling Records FD-3059

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Urgent: 1. Marie My Dear/Travelling Somewhere 2. Heart’s Vibration 3. The Sound's Begin Again/White Lies 4. Don't Stir the Beehive

Personnel: Urgent: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Brotherhood: 1. Nick Tete 2. Joyful Noise 3. Think of Something 4. Do It 5. Funky Boots March

Track Listing: Breath: 1. MRA 2. Davashe's Dream 3. Bride 4. Andromeda 5. Night Poem 6. Union Special

September 18, 2008

Selwyn Lissack’s Friendship Next of Kin

Facets of the Univers
DMG ARC 702

Sven-Åke Johansson, Moderne Nordeuropäische Dorfmusik

Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 - 72

Olof Bright Editions OBCD 14-15

Operating in the shade of rock music’s hegemony and somewhat overshadowed by American experiments, in the late 1960s-early 1970s European-based improvisers were creating their own answers to the question of how to forge modern music.

As these little-known period CDs led by drummer-conceptual artists demonstrate, these responses could take a multitude of forms. Better known of the leaders is Swede Sven Åke Johansson, a long-time Berlin resident, whose affiliation with the avant-garde ranges from his early participation in saxophonist Peter Brötzmann’s bands –including the seminal Machine Gun session – to his position today when he still plays with youngish experimenters like trumpeter Axel Dörner. His art is a sideline.

Facets of the Univers on the other hand is led by Selwyn Lissack, a South African, who subsequently abandoned music to concentrate on his career as a hologram sculptor. Recorded in 1969, the CD, which has been beefed up with a second version of the title track, captures that point when expatriates of all sorts were shaking up the London jazz scene. Most of the rest of the band consists of other former South Africans like trumpeter Mongezi Feza, bassist Harry Miller and Louis Moholo on incidental percussion. The group is filled out by Jamaican Kenneth Terroade on tenor saxophone and flute; Englishman Mike Osborne on alto saxophone; and American Earl Freeman on piano, bass and voice

Although Freeman, who also played with saxophonists Archie Shepp and Noah Howard, is the only Yank on the date, the session seems to take its cue from the extended polyphonic exoticism captured on similar New Thing outings of the time, encompassing ragged, climatic unison heads and expositions – plus a spoken word section.

Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 – 72 is an altogether different affair. As well as Johansson’s blunt, unremitting percussion work, the 1968 band features bassist Werner Götz, who holds things together rhythmically, and Norbert Eisbrenner, who today is also a painter, but then split his improvising between unvarnished Energy music on alto saxophone and Ur-psychedelic guitar runs. One track from Stockholm in 1970 adds legendary tenor saxophonist Bengt “Frippe” Nordstöm (1936-2000), whose contribution ranges from Aylerian to distracted The three final tracks, recorded in Oslo with cellist Peter Dyck, Eisbrenner and Johansson meander due to the sonic contradictions between the cellist’s sometimes romantically legato style and the guitarist’s style mutation into what could be a prototypical heavy-metal string shredding.

A Cape Town native, Lissack arrived in Britain in the mid-1960s and hooked up with like-minded players from his Apartheid-era homeland and others. Yet on this CD, the undulating lines, contrapuntal reed squeals and pounding percussion on both versions of “Friendship Next of Kin” relate more to similar Shepp or Albert Ayler dates than anything the expatriate Africans or minimalist-oriented Brits were trying,

For a start, playing a Don Cherry-like pocket trumpet, Feza’s triple-tongue slurs and tremolo sluices seem to come from Donald Ayler not the Townships, while both saxophonists’ wiggling snorts and walloping honks fit into the Shepp-John Tchicai mold of the time. Meanwhile Freeman contributes ragged, high-frequency piano chording as an irregularly paced counter line to the main theme. As the two percussionists add redoubled flams and bounces, gospelish call-and-response and layering discord results when Osborne and Terroade add glossolalia. Finally the piece is brought to its head with a tincture of bright growls from the trumpeter and a conclusive piano chord and drum roll.

The second version of “Friendship Next of Kin” is more of the same, except additionally irregularly pitched and recaps the head, which mirrors Ayler’s “Ghosts”. Along the way, Freeman introduces a waterfall of dynamic pianism and Feza plays high-pitched triplets; while the split-tone saxophone solos are harsh and antiphonal. More so than the first cut, Lissack gets to showcase his cymbal reverberations, patterning and rolls on the snares and toms.

Derivative and shackled to its time-frame, Freeman’s poetry on the title track is more an artifact than an avowal. In contrast, the memorable asides are Lissack’s tympani-like resonations, finger-cymbal like slaps and concussions from Moholo, swaying sul tasto lines from Miller and some raspy triplets from Feza. Osborne’s shrill and irregular whine confirms his individual status in this context, while Terroade’s double-tonguing on flute adds more variety to the cut.

Variety wasn’t among the Johansson trio’s concerns on the first CD of his collection. It was 1968 in Berlin, and the drummer’s group was one of the many providing what they heard as a soundtrack to a student and workers revolt. As elsewhere throughout this set, Götz comes across as MVP; his brooding thumps holding the almost-48½-minute piece together as the other two appear to be forging a progenitor to punk-jazz.

Extending the range of his kit as if he was playing electric drums, Johansson’s percussion impulses include clicks, clanks, sprawls, pumps and rolls. Eisbrenner is beginning to utilize phasers and distortion in his guitar solos and if it wasn’t for the bassist’s thick chording, the guitarist could have dragooned performance into Yardbirds territory. Luckily on alto saxophone, his trills and breaths introduce wispy reed-biting and hisses that lock into the Free Jazz tradition and are propelled with some Sunny Murray-like door knocking from the drummer. Although Eisbrenner’s lines are sometimes as abstract and fluttery as Götz’s are solid and conceptual, this adds to the track’s appeal. More than a revolutionary war cry, the reference to “modern Northern European village music” in the title is reified by inference if not intent.

Eventually the musique brut opens up enough so that the bassist can relax his sul tasto beat for fiddle-like runs and to scour and pick additional tinctures from his four strings. His freedom appears to embolden Eisbrenner as a guitarist, and on that instrument his soloing encompasses hard, chromatic frailing plus harsh below the bridge, both mixed with unexpected amp feedback. Summing up, the piece lurches to a finale which features the drummer roused to military style paradiddles and flams and the bassist introducing dramatic Death Metal-like multiphonics while double stopping.

Norway – Death Metal’s birthplace – appears to adversely affect the group four years later on during three tracks taped at an Oslo club. At this point however, Eisbrenner and Johansson are partnered by cellist Dyck. Although some of the cellist’s strident, lower-pitched sawing is reminiscent of Joel Freedman’s work with Ayler, most of the time the instrument’s harmonic history adds an unneeded elegance to the tracks. Additionally – intentionally or not – the guitarist had by then planted himself firmly in the rock camp. He speedily flanges and rappels up and down his strings reveal licks that seem to have wandered in from a country-rock session. While a few passages show off the drummer’s skills weaving slide whistles shrills, press rolls and bell-ringing into Free Jazz rhythms, even banging bluntly on the bass drum can’t seem to reconcile the others’ conceptions.

Furthermore, despite Götz’s presence two years earlier in Stockholm, the 26-minute improvisation there also never quite solidifies. Part of the problem may be that Eisbrenner is beginning to concentrate most fully on a rockier style, with passages sounding as if he has a resonator attached to his f-hole. Additionally, Nordström’s cloning of Ayler – he was Ramblin’ Jack Elliott to Ayler’s Woody Guthrie – seems in this instance to have slowed down his idea flow. Certain phrases that resemble “Ghosts” or “Vibrations” appear over and over again; some licks are mere phrase extenders or hooting overblowing. At one point Nordström’s meandering cause someone – Eisbrenner perhaps? – to chime in with Swing-to-Bop piano comping behind some of his solos. Later on, someone intones a poem in Swedish, which detracts as completely from the cohesive creation as Freeman’s versifying does on the other CD. At the track’s conclusion, Dyck introduces Jack Benny-style, fiddle-string scratching as the drummer reverberates something that sounds very close to garbage can lids. Overall, it’s the near-elastic resonation from Johansson’s cymbals and scraps on his percussion innards and sides which enliven the piece.

Both Facets of the Univers and Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 – 72 are valuable historical documents, although neither quite makes it into the front rank. With a greater range of colors, the Lissack session may have a slight edge, blunted by the recitation and its then-contemporary stance. Johansson’s three sessions attempt more, but also suffer from a too-loose live presentation. Of the three, the 1968 disc has the most to offer musically and sociologically.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Facets: 1. Friendship Next of Kin 2. Facets of the Universe 3. Friendship Next of Kin

Personnel: Facets: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone); Kenneth Terroade (tenor saxophone and flute); Earl Freeman (piano, bass and voice); Harry Miller (bass); Selwyn Lissack (drums) and Louis Moholo (incidental percussion)

Track Listing: Berlin: CD I: 1. Berlin Symphonie+ CD II 1. New Nordic light I*+ 2. Fernes Donnern mit Donnerblech 3. Kleiner Marsch 4. Ended mit vibrato und wirbel

Personnel: Berlin: Bengt “Frippe” Nordstöm (tenor saxophone)*; Norbert Eisbrenner (guitar, alto saxophone and voice); Peter Dyck (cello [CD2 tracks 2-4]); Werner Götz bass) + and Sven-Åke Johansson (drums and voice)

May 18, 2008

Sven-Åke Johansson, Moderne Nordeuropäische Dorfmusik

Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 - 72
Olof Bright Editions OBCD 14-15

Selwyn Lissack’s Friendship Next of Kin

Facets of the Univers

DMG ARC 702

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Facets: 1. Friendship Next of Kin 2. Facets of the Universe 3. Friendship Next of Kin

Track Listing: Berlin: CD I: 1. Berlin Symphonie+ CD II 1. New Nordic light I*+ 2. Fernes Donnern mit Donnerblech 3. Kleiner Marsch 4. Ended mit vibrato und wirbel

Personnel: Berlin: Bengt “Frippe” Nordström (tenor saxophone)*; Norbert Eisbrenner (guitar, alto saxophone and voice); Peter Dyck (cello [CD2 tracks 2-4]); Werner Götz bass) + and Sven-Åke Johansson (drums and voice)

May 18, 2008

HARRY MILLER’S ISIPINGO

Which Way Now
Cuneiform Records Rune 233

By Ken Waxman

Free Bop with a touch with kwela is probably the best way to describe this CD of never-before-released tracks from bassist Harry Miller’s 1975 Isipingo sextet. But this high quality session consisting of four of Miller’s compositions is more than that. It adds another document to the underrepresented story of South African/British improv.

Starting in the 1960s, usually fed up or fleeing apartheid, a variety of South African musicians abandoned their homeland and set up shop in the United Kingdom. Soon they interacted with some of the more advanced British players to develop a variant of Hard Bop mixed with transformed homeland melodies and touches of Free Jazz. Most – including trumpeter Mongezi Feza and drummer Louis Moholo featured here – were graduates of Chris McGregor’s Blue Notes combo.

Leader Harry Miller (1941-1983) however, arrived on his own in 1961 and quickly hooked up with British players. This band was named after a vacation spot in Miller homeland, and is the only recording featuring the band with Feza, who died shortly afterwards. Miller’s life too was cut short. He was killed in an auto accident in the Netherlands, having moved there in the late 1970s to maintain his playing situations with questing Continental improvisers like Dutch pianist Leo Cuypers and German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann.

Although the recording is a little rough – both the trumpeter and Osborne start solos off mic during one track, WHICH WAY NOW is valuable in capturing the band at the height of its power. In the intervening years since, Tippett has occupied himself with most experimental bands like Mujician; Moholo has returned to South Africa; Evans gigs occasionally, though is mostly employed as a math teacher; while personal problems caused Osborne to abandon music in the early 1980s.

There are few hints of an erratic course in his soloing here, which ranges from wispy, bucolic obliggatos to sharp tempered steel-like asides. At this point he seems to be modulating his attack from one initially informed by Jackie McLean Hard Bop toughness to a more dissonant approach with definite echoes of Eric Dolphy. On the title track, which sounds both Free and Basie-ish, he switches among standard R&B style riffs, reverberating Dolphyesque side-slipping and a series of quotes that reference operatic airs as much as jazz. Meanwhile Feza contributes blustery grace notes, Evans speedy boppish runs, and Tippett mainstream comping. Miller’s walking bass line decelerates to a hesitant, half-speed for the finale as the brass dissolve into a buzzing valve showpiece.

Before that, Moholo shows off ratcheting flams and bull’s eye cymbal vibrations and Miller modernized slap bass, as the altoist’s Dolphy-out-of-(Charlie) Parker irregularly vibrated lines and foghorn honks overblow in false registers. Faced with this, the pianist’s key sweeping seems almost like a series of etudes before it hardens into a steady flow of dynamic notes from one side of the piano to another.

Earlier still in the program, Osborne splits the melody into adjacent tones in his solo, following blowsy, double-tongued power shouts and chromatic near-tailgate bluster from Evans. The trombonist’s notes almost seem to be playing call-and-response with themselves. Feza is just as impressive, beginning with a heraldic flourish at the top of his range and concluding with deeply buried grace notes liberated from the recesses of his bell.

“Children at Play” is the defining track, a slinky groove fest that hurtles by so quickly that you hardly notice its more than 20½-minute length. What could be standard Bop changes and variations are reconstituted by the six. Osborne tempers his Jackie Mac-attack with a more sophisticated Free Bop flair; Evans blasts smeary cross tones northward almost into flute territory and Moholo underlines everything with hard, blunt slaps. Tippett’s backing mixes the solid pianism of Hard Boppers like Cedar Walton with the sliding modalism of a McCoy Tyner. Finally Miller’s double-stopping ringing timbres recaps the theme and concludes the piece.

Despite the sometimes informal – at times slapdash – mic placement and head arrangements, WHICH WAY NOW is musically as well as historically important. It also proves that at that junction Miller certainly knew the way.

Unfortunately for him, after 1983 there would be no longer be a “now”.

Track Listing: 1. Family Affair 2. Children at Play 3. Eli’s Song 4. Which Way Now

Personnel: Mongezi Feza (trumpet); Nick Evans (trombone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone); Keith Tippett (piano); Harry Miller (bass); Louis Moholo (drums)

August 21, 2006

MONGEZI FEZA

Free Jam
Ayler aylCD-048/049

Historically more striking than they are sonically or musically, the two 60-minute CDs that make up FREE JAM capture a certain time in Stockholm when the advances of Free Jazz had become common musical currency.

Featuring five local improvisers who made up saxophonist Bernt Rosengren’s avant-garde quartet -- and who have since returned to more mainstream pursuits -- the discs from 1972 not only show off the Swedes’ talents, but those of two distinguished visitors. While the five Stockholm residents were adapting variations of the New Thing to local modern jazz and folkloric influences, authentic Third World sensibilities mixed with swing came from the other two.

Trumpeter Mongezi Feza (1945-1975) was a South African exile based in England. His experience gradually expanded from working in an African jazz context with pianist Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, to freebop with altoist Mike Osborne, rock with singer Robert Wyatt and a World Music trio with South African bassist Johnny Dyani and Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz.

Istanbul-born, but then based in Stockholm, Temiz played a mixture of jazz and Turkish music with American trumpeter Don Cherry, a precursor of his combo with Feza and Dyani. He and Cherry had played with Rosengren’s band, which is how the two foreigners ended up regularly jamming with the saxman’s quartet in a local abandoned factory space. FREE JAM is the result, but the key words are “jam” and “factory”. Sound is acceptable, if a bit muddy in spots, and a look at the titles shows that no compositions were played, just variations on themes.

A bopper in the 1950s, Rosengren, who plays alto, tenor, flute and piano here -also worked with American composer/pianist George Russell and made six LPs with this band. Now in small or larger groupings he -- like Archie Shepp in the U.S. -- concentrates on jazz classics. Also still active, Tommy Koverhult who plays tenor saxophone, flute and euphonium, was a flat out John Coltrane follower in 1972. Formerly house drummer at Stockholm’s Golden Circle club in the 1960s, Leif Wennerström was part of pianist Per-Henrik Wallin’s trio. Bassist Torbjörn Hultcrantz, who died in 1994, was not only a member of Wallin’s trio, but also backed American saxophonist Albert Ayler on the later’s first LP in 1962.

Ayler was two years dead when these tunes were recorded. However, neither his convention-exploding later work, the theoretical basis of Russell’s compositions nor the skewed themes of Ornette Coleman -- probably the most famous jazzman to record at the Golden Circle -- seem to have influenced these musicians to any extent.

Instead the 10 jams that run from barely four to almost 39½ minutes stick to the parameters of freebop, with odd echoes of effluent group expressions that could be related to Trane’s “Ascension”. Except for a couple of instances of offbeat percussion, there are no non-Western rhythms audible, while Feza’s soloing lacks any African references. Taped with two mikes in a large space, many endings often lapse into indecorous silences. Hultcrantz usually can’t be heard, save for walking lines complementing Wennerström’s cymbal work, and if there are flute flights they vanish into the ceiling.

Instead percussion and horns are upfront. Overly busy in this context, Wennerström is also over-recorded and masks some of the others’ work. “Group Notes II”, for instance finds a heavy-footed over-reliance on the bass drum pedal. That’s too bad, because Koverhult appears to be adopting a mellow Stan Getz motion to his shattering blasts that owe as much to Pharoah Sanders as Trane here, Feza twitters some rubato slides and Rosengren cuts through the texture with a coarse, pinched buzz that’s almost oboe-like. On the tune preceding it, the trumpeter’s bubbly chromatic explosion and the screams and honks from the two saxes have to deal with Bop era percussion bomb dropping. For his part, Temiz adds color from chimes, bells and ratchets to advance Feza’s mid-range playful trumpet solo elsewhere.

Among the freeboppers, the trumpeter stands out on “Group Notes IV”, the final track. Here his slurs, glottal stops and flutter tonguing happen so quickly that you could imagine a quote from the William Tell Overture chromatically sneaking into his solo. Backed only by cymbal and clave rhythms, he comes up with centre tones that appear to echo back from the studio rafters. Answering split tones and squeals arise from the reeds, it sounds as if someone is playing bongo drums and Wennerström’s accents are more inventive.

This inventiveness extends to the second-longest tune, the 21-minutes-plus “Group Notes III”. It features half-valve bugle calls, spit out triple tonguing and slurred chromatic runs from the trumpet and a detour into dog whistle territory. There also could be a rubato reference to “Pop Goes The Weasel” here. Raucously bumping and press rolling the percussionists follow alone, while one tenor man introduces sibilant broken chords and the other -- Koverhult? -- darker and heavier notes that flutter tongue their way to shredded Pharoahesque cries and shrills. By the finale Feza’s trilling and swooping broken cadences get fiercer so that the two percussionists vary their technique and add more and different bells and beats to the backup.

Unbroken in its fervor is the almost 39½ minute first track, which begins as if the six were replicating the middle section of “Ascension”, with its yells and trills contrapuntal themes and unattached slurs. With Rosengren on piano, shouts of encouragement turn to freebop riffing from the horns and irregularly vibrated smears from Koverhult. Back on sax, Rosengren tosses arpeggios back-and-forth with the other reedist, avoiding the cymbal smashes and cross-sticking drums barrage until Feza joins in. At triple strength and a higher pitch, descending echoes of “Bags Groove” develop into an almost Amerindian theme.

What follows is an episode of drawn-out noodling from the horns -- as if all are waiting for someone to return to A. Finally Feza brassily trumpets a line and with a steady intensity vibrato from one reedist, and a serpentine line from another, the tune is twisted polytonally and polyharmonically. Different broken countermelodies plus harder and louder slams and bounces from the percussionists suggest another loss of focus, until the horns unite again, explode out of the polyphonic miasma and flow into a final development. Here, Temiz’s tambourine molds a timbre that’s as much Polonaise as Middle Eastern; it’s dance-type music that’s gentler than free jazz. The poppy ending reminds you that Sweden is the home of ABBA, and despite overlay of flutter tonguing the heavier percussion backbeat pushes the tune towards rock’n’roll.

Valuable for those who can’t get enough of Feza and those familiar with Temiz and Rosengren’s other work, FREE JAM can’t be overvalued. More thematic development on the tunes would be needed to make it a standout session.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD1: 1. Theme of the Day I 2. Group Notes I 3. Group Notes II Disc 2 4. Theme of the Day II 5. Mong’s Research I 6. Group Notes III 7. Mong’s Research II 8. Mong’s Research III 9. Mong’s Research IV 10. Group Notes IV

Personnel: Mongezi Feza (trumpet); Tommy Koverhult (tenor saxophone, flute, euphonium); Bernt Rosengren (alto and tenor saxophones, flute, piano); Torbjörn Hultcrantz (bass); Leif Wennerström (drums); Okay Temiz (percussion)

January 10, 2005

CHRIS MCGREGOR’S BROTHERHOOD OF BREATH

Bremen To Bridgwater
Cuneiform Records Rune 182/183

Count Basie of the Townships could have been the late South African pianist Chris McGregor’s nickname. That is, if his Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) big band, featured on this two-CD set of 1970s performances, didn’t add the colorations of Charles Mingus’ bigger groups and suggestions of Hank Crawford’s arrangements for Ray Charles to its unique mix of modern jazz and South African jive.

Earlier, apartheid era officials went out of their way to discourage the white pianist from mixing with black musicians. Which is why Capetown’s McGregor (1936-1990) and his black fellow players in the Blue Notes sextet ended up living permanently in Europe after 1964.

Mixing with British free improvisers such as saxophonists Elton Dean and Evan Parker, trumpeters Marc Charig and trombonist Radu Malfatti -- all of whom are represented on the over 2½ hours of previously unreleased music here -- the combo gradually expanded to big band size. That didn’t happen all at once, or stay permanent, as personnel shifts during the concerts captured on this set, one from 1971 in Germany and two from 1975 in England, reflect this.

At the same time BREMEN TO BRIDGWATER has to be recognized for what it is and what it isn’t. As a live record of a touring band it offers some exceptional swinging music enlivened by valuable solos from many musicians, including some who unfortunately are no longer around due to death or illness. But road conditions also mean that the performances aren’t as tight as they would be in a studio environment, and the recording is sometimes muffled and tubby. Many of the pieces rely on constantly repeated riffs and blaring dynamics. In fact, a few tunes and some of the solos could have been excised.

That said, BOB’s unique mixture of free jazz, kwela, swing blues and hard bop -- performed at jet plane-like speeds -- meant that roistering, hard bodied pieces that never seem to let up are its stock in trade. Especially interesting are the adaptations the Blue Notes’ star soloists made to this new environment.

Although McGregor’s approach was always pretty basic, tunes like “Now” on CD1, “Union Special” and “Sonia” features the kind of bluesy interchange you would expect to more readily find on Chicago’s Southside. Plus, notably on the first tune, the pianist’s comping and offbeat interjections feed the soloists in such a way that their thought process become more expansive -- sort of what Basie did for his band members as well. Many of McGregor’s compositions somehow have that American Southwest Territory band feel -- complete with call and response from the horn and brass sections.

Alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana (died-1990) is thoroughly his own man, and maintains his unique repertoire of sax squeaks and disco whistle tweets when he plays. There are times, such as on “Sonia”, where his full-blown multiphonics seem to be as much East St. Louis R&B as East London Township jive. Trombonist Nick Evans’ gutbucket blasts help maintain the mood, as does the polyrhythmic drumming of Louis Moholo, the only Blue Note still living in 2004.

In his solos, trumpeter Mongezi Feza (died-1975) shows that by this juncture he was listening to Don Cherry and other advanced brassman as well as high note specialists like Dizzy Gillespie. On Pukwana’s “The Birds”, for instance, he constantly slithers up the chromatic scale, constructing his solo out of high-pitched triplets smeared over the sonic surface. Besides bashing his snares, Moholo sounds as if he’s contributing Africanized whirl drum textures and tenor saxophonist Gary Windo, who spent time in Carla Bley big band, snorts split tones before trading licks with Feza.

Another South African, bassist Harry Miller (died-1983), who didn’t join the others until all immigrated to Europe, fuses impressively with Moholo’s backbeat and McGregor’s fills to provide the powerful spine underneath all 16 tracks. The few times he introduces a number or takes a couple of bars solo he proves that he could hold his own with the best timekeepers as well.

It’s also interesting to see which future BritImprov types were doing in the band, since BOB’s compositions usually meanders through echoes of down-to-earth swing, focused hard bop with echoes of “Bags Groove” and Mingus-like blow outs.

Mike Osborne, whose career as a freebopper was unfortunately curtailed by metal illness, acquits himself well with some characteristic glossolalia intersecting with smoother lines on, for instance, his own untitled original. He does strain to be heard over over-recorded drums though. Similar miasmic sound hampers him on “Kwhalo”. Unexpectedly, some of his best work comes on the clarinet. His fluid, double-tongued lines are as unique as his choice of axes.

Altoist Dean, who still moves between free music and jazz rock, doesn’t really surprise in his straightahead solos, neither do the few asides by future London Jazz Composers Orchestra stalwarts trumpeter Charig and trombonist Malcolm Griffith. But unless there’s a discographical mistake, that’s BritImprov exemplar Parker slurring and honking his way through the finger snapping second version of “Now” in a way never heard before or since.

As an aside, when BOB expresses its most freeform piece, “Restless”, it’s the South Africans -- McGregor double-timing, Moholo vibrating all parts of his kit, Miller double stopping, Feza producing brass flurries and Pukwana squeaking in irregular vibratos -- who are most far out.

Should your tastes run to kwela, Southwestern swing riffs, ceremonial music, hard bop, free jazz and/or rhythmic abandon you’ll find much to like here. Putting aside the occasional slipshod sound, this is another two-platter helping of BOB in its prime for its fans and for those who deserve to discover this fine band.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD1: 1. Funky Boots March 2. Kongi’s Theme 3. Now 4. The Bride 5. Think of Something 6. Union Special 7. Andromeda 8. Do It 9. The Serpent’s Kindly Eye 10. Untitled Original CD2: 1. Sonia 2. Now 3. Yes, please 4. Restless 5. Kwhalo 6. Untitled Original

Personnel: Marc Charig, Harry Beckett, Mongezi Feza (trumpets); Nick Evans, Malcolm Griffin, Radu Malfatti (trombones); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); Evan Parker (soprano saxophone and tenor saxophone); Dudu Pukwana, Elton Dean (alto saxophone); Gary Windo, Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Bruce Grant (baritone saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass); Keith Bailey or Louis Moholo (drums)

June 21, 2004