Max Roach’s percussion ensemble which recorded from the early 1970s have a cult following – probably because the music is so interesting and the records so rare – and the recordings go for three figures when they do come on sale. Rather confusingly, though, those records made commercially available tend to have the same title. This leads to the assumption that they are re-releases. I have to admit that this had been my original assumption.

Working on the recordings I’ve got, I hope I’ve grasped it correctly.

The first record from the group came in 1973 with Re:Percussion on Strata East with seven tracks. Confusingly, then there’s an LP of the same title in (I think) 1977 on Baystate featuring two long tracks, and then a Columbia LP (released later on CD) which is usually dated as July 25, 1979.

Re:Percussion on Strata East SES 19732
Max Roach
Roy Brooks
Joe Chambers
Omar Clay
Warren Smith,
Freddie Waits
Richard “Pablo Landrum

A1 – Morning, Noon, Midday (5:44)
A2- Attention-Call & Response (0:47)
A3-Jihad Es Mort (8:15)
B1- Elements Of A Storm/Thunder & Wind (2:00)
B2-Inner Passion (4:04)
B3- Heaven Sent (5:08)
B4- Onamotapoeia (6:38)

Re:Percussion on Baystate (J) RVJ 6001
1. Giselle Street (17.25)
2. Jihad Es Mort (15.100

Re:Percussion released on Columbia IC 36247

Roy Brooks
Joe Chambers
Omar Clay
Fred King
Max Roach
Warren Smith
Freddie Waits
Ray Mantilla

1. Onomatopoeia (5.21)
2. Twinkle Toes (3.36)
3. Caravanserai (4.05)
4. January V (3.27)
5. The Glorious Monster (6.49)
6. Rumble In The Jungle (7.18)
7. Morning/Midday (6.53)
8. Epistrophy (4.21)
9. Kujichaglia (6.27)

There are also some live recordings in existence of M’Boom

Alassio in September 9th, 1979
Zurich Jazz Festival in 1982
SOB’s, New York in 1992.

And some You Tube video:
An extract from a TV documentary on Max Roach opens with a short except of M’Boom in concert (there’s no details) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6xbASpL3-c&feature
A three-minute excerpt from another unnamed concert at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmYHyD1z008&feature

If I’ve got anything wrong here, or there’s extra information do let me know.

Tony Levin is a British jazz drummer whose career started in the 1950s and he is still active today. It is quite remarkable that there is no comprehensive online discography of his work. Levin appeared on some of the best British jazz records of the last fifty years, and has played in bands of quite astonishing breadth of styles. In the 1960s he was a member of Tubby Hayes’ bands, appearing on what for me is one of the high points of British Jazz, Mexican Green. During the 1970s he appeared on a whole stream of wonderful records from the likes of John Taylor, Alan Skidmore, Norma Winstone, Gordon Beck, Neil Ardley, Stan Sulzmann as well as Nucleaus’ Labyrinth. Over the last fifteen years he has been a member of Mujician, as well as a large number of outstanding recordings of European free improvisation.

Here’s my decade by decade discography based upon records I have, or can find information about. Please do let me know if I have missed anything or made any mistakes. If there’s no cover art I would welcome contributions.

1960s
1970s coming soon
1980s coming soon
1990s coming soon
2000s coming soon

Joe Harriott Live at Harry’s 1963 (Rare Music, 2006)

Joe Harriott – Alto Saxophone
John Collins – Alto Saxophone/Baritone Saxophone
Colin Willetts piano
Fred Barnsley – Double Bass
Tony Levin – Drums

Sandu [12:26]
Cherokee [11:17]
Night In Tunisia [13:07]
I’ll Remember April [16:32]
Just Friends [8:40]

Tubby Hayes Addictive Tendencies 1966

Tubby Hayes – Tenor Sax
Mike Pyne – Piano
Ron Matthewson – Bass
Tony Levin – Drums

CD 1:
Walkin’ [13:24]
Tubby’s “A Little Work Out” announcement [00:14]
Tubby’s “I Have A New Quartet” announcement [2:11]
Alone Together [25:53]
Tubby’s announcement [00:21]

CD 2:
Tubby’s announcement [00:19]
Off The Wagon [20:33]
Tubby’s announcement [00:12]
When My Baby Gets Mad Watch Out [12:30]
What Is This Thing Called Love [11:51]

Recorded England, UK 1966
Remastering Lee Goodall
Artwork Ian Muir
Produced Tony Levin

Tubby Hayes Quartet – Tubby Hayes Quartet Live at The Dancing Slipper Harkit

Tubby Hayes (ts,fl),
Mike Pyne (p),
Danny Thompson (b),
Tony Levin (d).

Alone Together
Here’s That Rainy Day
What Is This Thing Called Love
Be Myself
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
A Taste Of Honey

March 28th 1966 (Live at the Dancing Slipper)

Tubby Hayes with the Les Condon Quartet – Peter Burman Presents Jazz Tete A Tete (Harkit)

Les Condon (tp),
Tubby Hayes (ts),
Mike Pyne (p),
Ron Matthewson (b),
Tony Levin (d).

Freedom Monday
When My Baby Gets Mad-Everybody Split
(album also includes titles by Tony Coe Quintet and Frank Evans Trio).

Recorded at Bristol University, 18th November 1966.

Tubby Hayes Quartet – For Members Only

Tubby Hayes (ts,fl),
Mike Pyne (p),
Ron Matthewson (b),
Tony Levin (d).

Dear Johnny B*
Mexican Green*
Dolphin Dance*
A Dedication To Joy*
You Know I Care**
For Members Only**
Finky Minky***
Change Of Setting***
Conversations At Dawn***
Nobody Else But Me***
Off The Wagon***
Second City Steamer***
This Is All I Ask ***
*January 23rd, 1967
**August 7th, 1967 (BBC broadcast)
***October 11th, 1967 (BBC broadcast)

Tubby Hayes Quartet – Mexican Green (Fontana FJL911)

Tubby Hayes (ts, fl-1),
Mike Pyne (p),
Ron Matthewson (b),
Tony Levin (d).

Dear Johnny B
Off The Wagon
Trenton Place-1
The Second City Steamer
Blues In Orbit
A Dedication To Joy
Mexican Green

February 2nd and March 3rd, 1967

Tubby Hayes and his Orchestra 200% Proof (Master Mix CD)

Greg Bowen, Ian Hamer, Les Condon, Kenny Wheeler (tp)
David Horler, Bill Geldard, Chris Pyne (tb)
Peter King, Alan Branscombe (as)
Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott (ts)
Harry Klein (bs)
Mike Pyne (p)
Louis Stewart (g)
Ron Matthewson (b)
Spike Wells (d)

The Inner Splurge

add
Jeff Clyne (b)
Tony Levin (d)

200 Percent Proof

Ian Hamer, Les Condon (tp)
Kenny Wheeler (flhorn)
David Horler (tb)
Tubby Hayes (ts)
Peter King (as)
Alan Branscombe (p)
Louis Stewart (g)
Jeff Clyne (b)
Spike Wells (d)

Octuple Blast

Kenny Wheeler (tp)
Chris Pyne (tb)
Tubby Hayes (ts)
Ron Matthewson (b)
Tony Levin (d)

Conversations At Dawn

Tubby Hayes (ts)
Chris Pyne (p)
Ron Matthewson (b)
Tony Levin (d)

Members Only

July 25th, 1969 (BBC broadcast)

David Murray – I am a Jazzman
Jacques Denis & Jacques Goldstein – 2008

Screened on ARTE at 22.20 PM (Paris time) August 31, 2009 Details (in French) are here.

This is a fascinating fifty-five minute programme. Made in France where Murray now lives, there’s a French voice-over but most of the talking is in English with French subtitles.

It shows Murray in a number of contexts, Murray gets to communicate some of his ideas in words as a well as music, and we get something of his personal history.

Like most music documentaries it’s a montage of new footage, voice-over and interviews, clips from earlier Murray filming and some recorded music for soundtrack.

If you know something of Murray’s personal background you’ll find Murray’s journey back ‘home’ to California and the home movies fascinating, but oh too short. The footage of Murray in church as a young man, and playing with his father on guitar, was just wonderful. From here he goes back to the New York loft scene and we get some footage of Murray with Milford Graves from the late 1970s. There are extracts from the filming of Murray’s Sacred Ground, and he even goes back to the Hudson River to the place Albert Ayler drowned (although the voice-over doesn’t say so!). Then a statement from Murray that he needed to move from New York to extend his musical horizons.

Stanley Crouch, who was one of Murray’s earliest boosters back when he ran a jazz loft, says a few of his over-generalised, but supportive, points, and Murray meets up with first Black Panther Bobby Seale and then Amiri Baraka (who Murray recorded with in the 1970s) to discuss the place of jazz in American culture.

Murray’s walk on the banks of the Hudson is then paralleled with Murray walking on the coast of Guadeloupe where he talks about black musical cultural identity. We visit a slave processing centre, repeating Murray’s experience of visiting West Africa in the 1980s. This establishes the programme’s thesis: Murray is looking for the true black musical experience as he threw off his desire to be a jazz star.

The programme’s short extracts from concert performances are intriguing: there’s the Coltrane Murray; the James Brown Murray; the loft Murray, the Guadeloupe Afro-Murray. We get the biggest chunks of the latter, but in the interspersed comments Murray talks about how important black jazz history is to him. We also get some insights into various parts of Murray’s most recent work with the Gwo Ka Masters, Ishmael Reed and Amiri Baraka.

As a few readers of this blog will know I am a bit of a Murray fanatic, and over the years I’ve managed to collect his whole recorded output, but I’ve been able to get very few examples of David Murray on video. Other suggestions on what is out there greatly appreciated.

You can read more about David Murray elsewhere at wallofsound

David Murray & Milford Graves: Real Deal 　　　　　　　　
DIW 867

David Murray (tenor saxophone on 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8, bass clarinet on 4 and 7),
Milford Graves (drums and percussion)

1. Stated With Peace (David Murray) 7:50
2. The Third Day (David Murray) 8:50
3. Luxor (David Murray) 8:29
4. Under & Over (Milford Graves) 6:03
5. Moving About (Milford Graves) 11:08
6. Ultimate High Priest (Milford Graves) 6:27
7. Essential Soul (Milford Graves) 10:49
8. Continuity (David Murray) 4:10

Recorded November 3, 1991, at Power Station, NYC

This album came 11 records into Murray’s tenure with DIW records and, as would be suggested by a duo performance with Milford Graves, it probably has more in common with Murray’s earlier performances than with his other work of that time. During most of October and early 1991 Murray seemed to have been locked in the Power Station recording studio in New York City, and with nothing else to do he embarked on a mammoth recording session with a wide array of different musicians. This duo performance was the last of a run that included a quartet with James Blood Ulmer, Murray’s then concert quartet with Bradford Marsalis added on two tracks, and a beautiful quartet/quintet recording with some of his earlier collaborators including Bobby Bradford, Dave Burrell, and Fred Hopkins.

‘Moving About’ is perhaps the most imaginative and satisfactory of the tracks as a collaboration. While elsewhere the sax and drums sometimes sound like they a running on parallel lines, here the drum textures seem to offer Murray something to work with, and his playing is ecstatic but rooted. Nevertheless my favourite track is ‘Essential Soul’. Perhaps because I favour Murray over Graves, and I always feel that this period is the strongest for Murray’s Bass Clarinet playing. Here Murray’s playing might be more independent, but Graves is more restrained, and he follows Murray’s lead even though this is the percussionist’s composition. I just adore Murray’s exposition. Others may find it meandering, and it doesn’t seem to have any sense of direction, or any musical resolution; it’s just one of those beautiful Murray journeys. I don’t really care where it is going. ‘Under & Over’ is almost jolly, and there is some real interaction as Murray takes a much more percussive role on Bass Clarinet, and produces some of his best squeals and squarks, in a uncanny copy of his tenor saxophone playing. This was a real instrumental master at work. ‘Luxor’ investigates the tumultuous side of Murray, and ‘The Third Day’ is almost middle eastern to my untrained ear, with lots of busy traps playing from Graves.

Graves is venerated as much, I feel, because his recordings are a rare commodity, and yet he is striking even amongst free drummers. He certainly became enamored of complex timbres and his playing is often more musical than rhythmic in the jazz swing sense. In the New York Art Quartet he started out as a conventional traps drummer in a strong and idealist group, joining Albert Ayler for Holy Ghost and Love Cry (where Graves seems totally dominated by the saxophonist), he then appeared intermittently on disc with a range of his own groups and in small-scale settings. I do love his work on Nommo with Don Pullen, in a combination of jangle and cavernous percussion with dark piano clusters that shouldn’t work, but does. This is real textual stuff, in which who is the percussionist and who the melodist seems a stupid question. I would be interested to find out who had the idea of pairing him with Murray. It isn’t that there wasn’t a precedent. Murray seemed to like percussive percussionists, and had played with Sunny Murray, Philip Wilson, and Andrew Cyrille within three years of arriving in New York. he then went on to work with some of the best drummers in jazz, followed by experiments with Kahil El’Zabar from the late 1980s into the 1990s. later Murray would explore a whole wider world of percussion in collaborations with African and Caribbean percussionists.

For those willing to spend a little time acclimatising, and especially if they are willing to suspend their belief that music has to have a purpose beyond the moment, this is exactly the real deal.

Wilber Morris / David Murray / Dennis Charles: Wilber Force 　　　　
DIW 809

Wilber Morris (b)
David Murray (ts 1-4 6,bcl 5)
Dennis Charles (d)

1. Randy (Wilver Morris) 12:55
2. P.C.O.P. #1 (Wilver Morris) 10:00
3. Miss Mack (Wilver Morris) 9:05
4. West Indian Folk Song (Dennis Charles) 8:40
5. Afro-Amer. Ind (Wilver Morris) 10:20
6. P.C.O.P. #2 (Wilver Morris) 11:35 　

Recorded live at February 6, 1983 at Kwame, NYC

This seems to be the second recording for Wilber Morris’ sometime bass-drums-sax trio. This one features the young (but long-time Morris associate) David Murray, and recent partner in rhythm (but fixture of the New York scene) Dennis Charles. Morris and Murray were both part of the tide of West Coast musicians setting up in New York in the mid 1970s to play in the loft scene, while Charles had been the powerhouse behind some of the key experimental musicians of New York’s avant guard since the early 1950s.

I bought this as part of my obsessive David Murray collecting, but it is now far from a completists addition. The bassist is clearly the leader here, composing all the themes with short names ( West Indian Folk Song is Charles’), and giving all the numbers their drive and shape. Murray is particularly effective in a trio, and the Morris themes seem to push him to some very different performances. Although I tend to think Murray can do no wrong, even I’d have to admit that he hardly ever subsumes himself into the setting he finds himself. In ‘Afro-Amer.Ind’, though, features his plaintive bass clarinet weaving through Morris’ bass figures and Charles’ choppy cymbal work. A bass and vocal chant leads to a long Murray solo, subsides into a bass solo with a intermittent gentle tap and brushed backing from Charles, before Murray and Charles burst back in stretch to the end. Meditative is probably the adjective. By contrast Charles’ jolly theme suits Murray well, and brings out a strong tight drums and bass performance.

‘Miss Mack’ is more subdued sax and Charles’ lovely drum textures. This one repays repeated listening. It’s remarkable how much is going on amongst the three musicians. The longest track, ‘Randy’, has one of those quirky rhythm-melody themes, and some constant changes of pace driven by bass and drum with Murray holding on for dear life! He does get to squeal a little here, though. there are two ‘PCOP’s, though I’m not clear what they are. A lovely theme set out by sax and bass with cracking physical playing from Charles. There’s a lot of unfocused meandering, but journey’s don’t have to be purposeful if there’s lots to hear on the way, and here the textures are just wonderful. This really is music for the moment that allows you to forget where you’ve come from, and care little about where your heading.

As far as I am aware this was the first time Murray was on a DIW recording, and a decade later this was going to be his main channel for releases. There’s a pattern in Murray’s history where he records as a sideman for a project and seems to establish a relationship that blossoms into a recording contract later on. This was also a bit of a return to small group recordings after septet and octet experiments (usually featuring Morris and his younger brother, Butch) interspersed with quartet recordings.

Along with Collective Improvisations (featuring Denis Charles and saxophonist Charles Tyler for Bleu Regard in 1981) this is an enjoyable record in its own terms, and a key point in Murray’s career that isn’t that well known.

morph33

This week I attended the New Jazz Histories Seminar at Salford University with my colleagues Paul Long and Andrew Dubber. Paul and I gave a presentation on the BBC documentary series Jazz Britannia. This is part of a wider project we are developing on popular music history and heritage at the Birmingham School of Media’s Interactive Cultures research centre. We’ll be writing this paper up as a full journal article, and I’ll post some of the background thinking at Wallofsound over the next few weeks, starting with the key points of our presentation.

Here I am writing primarily for those who attended the seminar, and others who may be interested in such debates. The discussion is therefore somewhat more abstract than my usual wallofsound posts.

The other papers at the seminar took a variety of approaches to jazz history: Alyn Shipton opened the discussions by linking his own fairly recent book to the papers that followed, and to his own oral history research and publication; Jason Squinobal (University of Pittsburgh) and then Adrian Goodman (York University Toronto) used musicology to investigate John Coltrane’s later career, and the innovations of Tony Williams and Miles Davis respectively; Jeremy Barham, (University of Surrey) and then Laurent Cugny (Université Paris-Sorbonne Paris IV) gave more theoretically-abstract reflections on issues of definition and periodisation in jazz; and finally Andy Fry (Kings College, University of London) produced a convincing and stimulating reappraisal of the career of Sidney Bechet in France using historical evidence. The issues of doing jazz historography was then discussed by a panel of Nicholas Gebhardt (University of Lancaster), George McKay (University of Salford), Catherine Parsonage (Open University), Alyn Shipton (RAM), Tony Whyton (University of Salford) and the wider seminar members. Hopefully the authors will turn their papers into articles for the Jazz Research Journal, and you’ll be able to read them at length in the months ahead.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day, and provoked me to think about some key questions in research about jazz culture. Paul, Andrew and I certainly had a good discussion on the way home to Birmingham.

The diversity of approaches to jazz history have made the field a dynamic one, and there certainly isn’t an orthodoxy. However, I wonder if collectively we have focused on whatever methodology we have inherited, and in doing so we haven’t spent enough time on some central questions. Certainly such questions kept coming to my mind through the various papers, either because they centrally addressed issues, or because they ignored them, implicitly throwing up as many questions as they answered. Here are my initial observations and the questions that cristalised at the end of the day:

There seemed to be key unarticulated questions that threaded their way through all the papers: how do/should/can we understand jazz historically? Or put another way, how do we understand jazz in history?

My own use of historiography to explore popular music culture in its different manifestations has led to the increasing conviction that there isn’t a cultural object that is popular music, but that what music fans, music-makers and the media do and say constructs a changing sense of what popular music is as a whole, and what it is in any particular time and place. Jazz, it has always seemed to me, is the paradigm case. Put simply, there isn’t any such thing as jazz! Rather we need to understand that there is a way of ‘manufacturing’ a cultural object which has been (and is) termed jazz, but that this thing is a different thing at different times and places. Such a statement includes the idea that jazz sounds different at different times, or that jazz means different things to different people dependent on their historical or social location; but it also means far more. To understand what jazz is we shouldn’t look at the thing, but at what is said and done to bring it into existence.

I intend these statements to be a provocation. One I hope will continue the debate we started in Salford. However, you may also recognise my debt to the work of Michel Foucault, and his discussion of the nature of things, in such a proposition. Paul and I explicitly used this approach when we analysed the Jazz Britainnia series. Specifically, we argued that the programmes constructed a totalising history, in which the complexity of single moments are subsumed into a broad sweep of a historical narrative, which often seeks to justify a single idea.

I recognise, then, that my other observations follow from that position. Even if the other members of the seminar (and others interested in such questions) aren’t convinced by the starting position, I hope they’ll at least take seriously the ideas that flow from it, and use them to interrogate their own work.

First, I was struck how prevalent, in the analyses that were presented, were the use of pre-existing historical models (or even specific historical narratives), and the tendency of such models or narratives to totalise jazz. Laurent’s analysis made his historical narrative most explicit, and the totalising tendency was perhaps the strongest here. He suggested a new extended classic period in jazz which encompassed swing, bop and post bop styles. In doing so he pushed the modern moment of jazz past bop to free and modal forms of jazz practice. He explicitly drew upon the European notion that art reaches a mature, classic, phase, and that earlier music is an antecedent, while later forms formally interrogate the classic period in their self-conscious modernism. Central to his reclassification is the notion that swing and bop are united in a common practice which dominated jazz from a rupture around 1930, to the next rupture in 1960. I have argued that such notions are characteristic of all popular music histories. Laurent, though drew his paradigm from European art music frames of reference. Jason’s and Adrian’s analysis placed a heavy emphasis on textual scrutiny, the dominant approach used by trained musicologists. Perhaps my own lack of such training limits my understanding, but while I usually find these approaches interesting, I also feel they restrict history to the idea that the music changed. Jason certainly gave details of Coltrane’s personal history to contextualise his analysis, but then these are constructed as psychological determinants, and remove the idea of agency from that moment of history. Jazz musicians make meaningful choices in a cultural context, and while they make them out of the material provided by history, they are not determined by it. In such accounts the focus is on the very fine detail of what happened musically, rather than how the music signified in a wider culture, and why groups of music-makers do the new things they do.

Second, such analyses seem to suggest that there has been a relatively slight influence of theories of historiography from outside jazz studies as musicology. Historiography itself, and cultural and media studies, have been fields in which debates about what is history and how it should be researched and then written have been paramount. We should at least use these debates as reference points to discuss and evaluate what we do. Alyn did this effectively in regard to oral history, and something of the intelligence and communication skill that he brings to his writing and broadcasting was made plain in his paper. Jeremy was the most explicit amongst us in trying to apply work from cultural studies. Specifically he drew on Deleuze and Guattari’s use of the idea of the rhizome as a way of avoiding the reductive idea of roots common in historiography and the hierarchical relationships which are often utilised in cultural analysis. I’m entirely persuaded by this notion myself, but strangely Jeremy ended up with a series of completely dehistorised examples in the way he applied the idea. His suggestions did ‘flatten’ the ideas of European art analysis that dominates music study, but at the very same time it decontextualised jazz’s existence as a popular music.

This brings me to my third point. While jazz is clearly discursively constructed most often as an art music, I think that should alert us to the need to study the central role of critics and of the concerns of the listening and collecting audience (rather than musicians), rather than to make arbitrary musical connections between the formal properties of single practices of jazz and single practices of European art music. The idea of the rhizomal relationship more productively, I think, points us in the direction of jazz’s pace in wider popular culture (and therefore popular music). So often jazz is posed against popular music, when the common practices of jazz music-making are those of the popular, not the art musician, even if the common practice of the fan is very often similar to that of the art music (self-consious) connoisseur. Such an approach was practically demonstrated (exemplified, even) by Andy’s attention to the detail of Sidney Bechet’s music-making, and the facts of his life and music, as a way of rethinking the dominant historical narrative of jazz, and Bechet’s place in it. I hope I am not overwriting on his sensitive reading of the musician’s life when I point out that Bechet was a popular musician making a living in ways that were open to him at different points in his career.

More simply put, we need to avoid understanding the existing historical narratives of jazz as statements of truth, rather than frameworks which seek to make a complex world comprehensible. Making things comprehensible is, of course, the purpose of scholarship, but we must remember that such moments of understanding offer both uses and limitations in our attempt to grasp the significance of things in the world.

David Murray Flowers For Albert
India Navigation IN 1026
Recorded live on June 26 1976 at Ladies’ Fort, NYC

David Murray (ts)
Olu Dara (tp)
Fred Hopkins (b)
Phillip Wilson (d)

CD1
1. Flowers For Albert (Murray) (14:18)
2. Santa Barbara and Crenshaw Follies (Murray) (15:53)*
3. Joanne’s Satin Green Dress (Lawrence “Butch” Morris) (12:56)
4. After All This (Murray) (13:59)*

CD2
1. Roscoe (Murray) (9:05)
2. The Hill (Murray) (17:55)*
3. Ballad For A Decomposed Beauty (Murray) (9:18)

* not on original LP.

The original vinyl record released under this title was made up of parts of a live concert by Murray’s then quartet in one of New York’s famous 70s Jazz lofts, the Ladies’ Fort.

I’d been totally immersed in Murray’s 1980 work before I tracked a copy of this earlier recording down, and I can still remember being completely thrown. It is quite remarkable how mature all aspect of the record is. His compositions are some of the most notable of the 1970s, his playing is superb, and the group with then regular collaborators Dara, Hopkins and Wilson is one of the best of this period of jazz for my money. There’s a small, but very enthusiastic audience, and I try to visualise while listening what it must have been like to sit in a large post-industrial New York space and hear this music for the first time. It still makes the hairs on the back of my neck bristle today; how it must have felt to be there watching as well as listening I can only imagine.

The recording is significant for its music, its place in jazz history, and the way it has been used to interpret Murray. Here’s a few thoughts on all that:

There are ten versions of ‘Flowers for Albert’ to be listened to on Murray recordings. This was the first time it was recorded. Most bibliographies note that the title track is named after Albert Ayler, and then infer this as evidence that Murray is an Ayler disciple. The fact that Murray played some of his first New York gigs with his near namesake drummer Sunny Murray – who had been the powerhouse of Ayler’s 1964-5 recordings that included the mighty Spiritual Unity – must have made Murray very aware of Ayler. There are also some undoubted comparisons to be made. The obvious one, most often made, is that both men manipulate the saxophone in a manner that pushes it outside its ‘normal’ musical uses. Murray clearly shares Ayler’s early interest in pushing the mechanics of the instrument to do things few other players realised, or even imagined. Less often noted is the strong roots in, and exploration of, gospel music. Or more specifically the aspects of gospel that relate to the emotional power and ecstatic nature of gospel within African American music.

However, there are far more interesting things at play here. As the title suggests, and as Murray has confirmed in interviews, the flowers are to be left in memorial of Ayler’s death. The melody captures this perfectly. This version start with a Murray solo which tantalises us with fragments of the melody for a good minute before playing it through in its entirety. This is a simple and catchy line, and this interest in song-like melodies is probably the strongest characteristic of all Murray’s work. In interviews Murray tells us that the striking melodic line came into his head as he walked past the place on the bank of the East River where Ayler’s body was found. So, while other commentators make the link to Ayler playing in life as Murray’s major stylistic influence, we should perhaps see the sadness at his death as a catalyst for one example of Murray’s ability to articulate deep emotional responses through musical sound. I’ve several posts on this issue here if you’re interested.

The CD version I write about here is expanded from the original vinyl release (the other Murray India Navigation CD re-releases usually cut tracks or performance lengths). This allows us to listen to previously unreleased versions of ‘Santa Barbara And Crenshaw Follies’ and ‘The Hill’ which he was to record again later in his career, and ‘After All This’ which doesn’t seem to have been repeated. The twisted melody of ‘Follies’ precedes a great Murray solo set against marvelous Hopkins bass and Wilson’s skipping drum work and off-kilter punctuation from Dara. It’s a great example of Murray’s earlier interest in hyper-emotional playing around single fragments of the lovely melodies he wrote. Dara seems to understand the process brilliantly, and they pass the solo opportunity on like the baton in a relay. Murray recorded the Hill four times, and on each occasion he produces an epic piece of over 10 minutes. here its longer still at over 17 minutes. The dynamic of future recordings is here from the beginning, but it doesn’t yet have the majesty it would on Ming four years later.

I love ‘Joanne’s Green Satin Dress’ which has a great two horn theme and some beautiful playing from both Dara and Murray. Dara was later to be quite disparaging about the music he played during this time, as well as critical of players in the New York loft scene. You couldn’t tell that he was anything but delighted to be playing in this context on this track; and on the rest of the LP. ‘Roscoe’ meanders, but is sustained by a strong individual performance from Murray. It’s more like a sax solo with percussion sprinkles. ‘Ballad For A Decomposed Beauty’ is one of the strongest titled pieces Murray recorded, and the sense of decay and melancholy is apparent in the melody and the playing, especially from Murray and Hopkins on bowed bass.

By the way, don’t confuse this recording with the 1990 CD released by West Wind records of David Murray and the Low Class Conspiracy Flowers for Albert.

There’s a full discography of India Navigation records for you to peruse.

Dudu Pukwana Diamond Express 1975 Freedom FLP 41041

also released as Ubagile (Jazz Colours 874744-2)

Dudu Pukwana (Alto Saxophone)
Elton Dean (Saxello track 5)
Nick Evans (Trombone track 5)
Mongezi Feza (Trumpet)
Lucky Ranku (Guitar)
Frank Roberts (Keyboards tracks 1 to 4)
Keith Tippett (Piano track 5)
Ernest Mothole (Bass tracks 1 to 4) ,
Victor Ntoni (Bass track 5)
James Meine (Drums tracks 1 to 4) ,
Louis Moholo (Drums tracks 5)

1. Diamond Express
2. Bird Lives
3. Ubagile (See Saw)
4. Madodana (The Young Ones)
5. Tete And Barbs In My Mind

Recorded Autumn 1975, London

If you are not familiar with Dudu Pukwana, something of his background should indicate his importance in British jazz. He was one of the musicians who came together in the early 1960s South Africa in the multi-ethnic Blue Notes. You can imagine what the official response to such a group would be under the Apartheid regime of that time. The musicians relocated to Europe, and made their base in London. The Blue Notes fused multiple South African forms with African American jazz, and in Europe they engaged with the London, and wider European free movements. Pukwana’s music tended to emphasise the rhythmic patterns of both South African popular music, and African American funk with a acerbic emotionally charged alto playing style. His classic In the Townships is one of my all-time favourite records.

If you are familiar with Dudu Pukwana, but not with this recording a real treat lays in wait for you. For me, it is one of the most interesting record in the Pukwana discography. The first four tracks are by a group of Pukwana’s SA collaborators. They feature great rumbling rhythm section the drives the music. ‘Madodana’ is my favourite, featuring a percussion bridge built around Louis Moholo’s standard kit, and all the band on assorted clatter and shake. Frank Robert’s Fender Rhodes gives it a funky feel, and Pukwana and Feza are great if a little in the sidelines. ‘Ubagile’ is typical of Pukwana’s township jive, although his playing is a little more laid back, and Robert’s keyboards are mixed up higher than the alto. Sometimes Pukwana sounds like he’s fighting to be heard. ‘Tete and Barbs in my Mind’ is completely different. This is obviously due to the addition of Elton Dean on saxello and particularly Keith Tippett on piano. Pukwana is now far more strident, and higher in the mix, and matches Tippett’s discordant but very grand playing and the bands unison rich SA melodies. Mongezi died soon after this recording; a great loss to a great community of jazz players.

I’m not sure how this came to be originally issued on Arista’s Freedom label, but copies of the original LP are quite hard to find. It was rereleased on by the German DA music label Jazz Colours as Ubagile. Now seemingly OOP, I think a few more people should know this great music.

Clarinet Summit
In Concert at the Public Theater Vol. I/II
India Navigation 1062CD 1991

compiles both volumes released on vinyl as:
India Navigation 1062 (LP – 1984)
India Navigation 1067 (LP – 1985)

Recorded live in Spring 1981 at the Public Theatre, NY

Alvin Batiste (B flat clarinet),
John Carter (B flat clarinet),
Jimmy Hamilton (B flat clarinet),
David Murray (bass clarinet)

1.Introduction
2. Groovin’ High 2:33
3. The Jeep’s Blues 5:14
4. Mood Indigo (Duke Ellington) 2:06
5. Night Mist Blue (Jimmy Hamilton) 2:06
6. Waltz A Minute (Jimmy Hamilton) 1:11
7. Creole Love Call (Duke Ellington) 2:58
8. Honeysuckle Rose 7:48
9. Sweet Lovely (Murray) 5:59
10. Sticks and Bones 6:40
11. Solo and Ballad for Four Clarinets (John Carter) 12:45
12. The Washington Square Park Episode 6:52
13. Clariflavours (Alvin Batiste) 16:28

also on the vol. II LP (and not on the CD, or this post) ‘Satin Doll’ (Duke Ellington) 2:40

This is an interesting record where David Murray is a key member of an ensemble, rather than a leader. It comes from fairly early in his career, and represents one of his earliest substantial outings playing bass clarinet. The band is pretty much a clarinet version of the saxophone quartets which were in vogue in the 1980s. Led by John Carter, and featuring Ellington alumnus Jimmy Hamilton, in/out player Alvin Batiste, and Murray who had only taken up bass clarinet few years before.

The programme is an interesting mixture of original compositions from the group members and Ellington originals. The CD features sleeve notes by Stanley Crouch (doing a bit of historical contextualisation) and John Carter (explaining how the date came about). Crouch emphasises the New Orleans origins of jazz clarinet, evoking Bechet and Barney Bigard as precursors, and rightly says that the music chosen owes much to the success of the performances. Honeysuckle Rose highlights Batiste and Hamilton, and Murray solos on his own Sweet Lovely. The lengthier tracks show John Carter’s writing and arranging off to great effect, and are excellent examples of why I rate him as one of the master’s of jazz.

Given the long careers of the other three, the much younger Murray acquits himself superbly, and without any hesitation. The group practiced for three days before, but they sound completely at ease with each other. This inter-generational approach was to be a common feature of Murray’s later bands.

The recording stands up well after over 25 years, and it is one of the reasons India Navigation was such a collectable label. You’ll find a full discographic listing of the label at http://indianavigation.blogspot.com/