Our new JazzTimes Sweeps Week will conclude on the last Thursday of the month, with one historical release/reissue pick from each of our reviewers. Take it away!
Ken McIntyre and Eric Dolphy, Looking Ahead (Prestige/New Jazz 1961, OJC/Craft Recordings)
Along with taking up alto saxophone after he discovered Charlie Parker in his teens, Boston-born Makanda Ken McIntyre had equal footing in bassoon, oboe, flute and bass clarinet, as well as the piano of his pre-sax childhood. Rather than find himself amid the flames of Parker’s bop roar, McIntyre had a heedful, statelier, freer sound stemming from his explorations in timbre, harmony and melodic structure, surely steered by his time studying at the Boston Conservatory with saxophonists Gigi Gryce, Andy McGhee and Charlie Mariano as his mentors (he received a degree in flute and composition in 1958).
Such a statuesque, serious-minded way with his axe(s) and a courtly sense of melody made McIntrye the perfect partner for Eric Dolphy, a fellow of infinite invention and equally thoughtful, even baronial music by the time of his famed At the Five Spot volumes of live recordings between 1961 and 1963. Like McIntyre, Dolphy — an André 3000 of his time, one could say — was proficient on bass and soprano clarinet, saxophones, flute and piccolo, with his own lofty visions of what the music meant.
Looking Ahead shows off McIntyre’s way with a song on a handful of his original compositions (save for the Gershwins’ “They All Laughed”). The traditional African music pacing of “Geo’s Tune” is something you might hear in a Pharoah Sanders work, filled with both saxophonists cutting brashly (Dolphy most explosively) into drummer Art Taylor’s mesmerizing kicks and shifts in tandem with pianist Walter Bishop, Jr.
McIntrye did too few albums as a leader – a dozen by my count by the time of A New Beginning in 2001 – which is a shame, as Looking Ahead did just that, and with sinew, soul and sweet-and-sour melodicism to match its free vibe. — A.D. Amorosi
Donald Byrd, Stepping into Tomorrow (Blue Note)
This was the fourth of five albums that trumpeter Donald Byrd made in the early to mid-’70s with the Mizell Brothers, Larry and Fonce, hitmakers for the Jackson 5 and more. Larry Mizell produced the albums and wrote much of the material, which amalgamates R&B, funk and modal jazz in an unabashedly poppy way. The Mizells apparently had a rhythm section on speed-dial, bassist Chuck Rainey and drummer Harvey Mason, and a good deal of the groove magic on Stepping into Tomorrow — and on Black Byrd, Street Lady, Places and Spaces and Characters — is down to them.
By this point, Byrd had already gone electric, with Blue Note happy to oblige: In 1968, just a few months after Miles Davis recorded In a Silent Way (which had yet to come out), Byrd recorded Fancy Free, produced by Duke Pearson, who played electric piano on that and the two albums that followed (Electric Byrd, Kofi). But those releases featured mainly Byrd’s compositions. The Mizell series was a clean break in that regard. There are echoes here of sophisticated pop sounds of the time like The Fifth Dimension, with Byrd among a number of people credited on vocals (along with the Mizells). His horn is eloquent, full of ideas, as is Gary Bartz on alto and soprano saxes.
Jazz purists had no use for these albums, but the hip-hop generation had a field day years later, and the aesthetic was heartily embraced by the Brecker Brothers and others as well. It is clearly part of the musical inheritance of present-day trumpeters such as Theo Croker, Keyon Harrold and Chief Adjuah. — David R. Adler
Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley, Flashing Spirits (Burning Ambulance Music)
Of the many drummers with whom pianist Cecil Taylor played in duet — and it is a heady list — it was only the partnership with Tony Oxley that became longstanding. Both coming out of modern jazz but moving into music defying category, the two were in a sense searching for each other unknowingly, until finally connecting during the pianist’s legendary July 1988 Berlin residency, documented as Leaf Palm Hand.
Now another document of their collaboration has arrived, coming less than two months after that initial encounter. The title given to this 43-minute recital from the Outside In Festival in Crawley, United Kingdom is an apt one. It doesn’t take long into the opening 38-minute exposition for the fuse to be lit, Taylor’s famed 88-tuned-drums approach echoed by the clattering, rolling stomping and ringing of his partner, who coaxes an astonishing array of sounds out of his kit. Even this early in their oeuvre, there is no hesitation, compelling dialogue moving almost faster than the ear can appreciate, the energy and invention never lagging. That they can reestablish both in four- and one-minute encores speaks to their compatibility. — Andrey Henkin ◊