Bob James Trio - 'Explosions' (Get Back)

The 60s are full of amazing recordings that push music into new directions; this Bob James Trio LP is often overlooked, maybe because James himself had a long career playing more standard jazz afterwards, and he wasn't there for the long haul. Despite the title, this isn't fire music, but an early exploration of electroacoustic improvisation meeting the jazz idiom head-on. It's credited to the trio of James, Barre Phillips and Robert Pozar, but the frequent incursions of tapes and electronics are the work of Gordon Mumma (on opening track, 'Peasant Boy') and Robert Ashley (on 'Untitled Mixes' and 'Wolfman'). The credits make it unclear if Mumma and Ashley are just responsible for the compositions, or maybe the tape material was supplied by Mumma but not actually, technically 'played' by him on this recording. It's a stunner, though - opening with a bumpy, centreless improvisation between James's piano, Phillips's bass and Pozar's drumkit, it soon withers to almost nothing and the players do an Art Ensemble-esque exploration of space. A few plucked strings, something scraped, a few tonally confusing notes - and this is when Mumma's sounds come in. Sounding like only tapes can sound, you can hear the squleching and squirming movement push the musicians to redefine their approach to colour and mood. This segues perfectly into 'Untitled Mixes', where Ashley's somewhat more present electronics are in place, but it feels like a seamless transition, just a handoff of tapes. The band continues their spacious interplay, with enough emptyness at the core that the surface noise is often alone (or the echo of the studio if your hi-fi equipment is good enough). Slowly, the musicians come back together, and it's harmoniously disharmonious, if that makes any sense. James's 'Explosions' closes the first half, a curiously named piece for something so quiet and spare. Phillips's bowing take centre stage and it sneaks around sonorities not unreminiscent of baroque European composition, eventually puttering to halt which is a false ending, before a few plucked strings resonate to the run-out grooves. Side two begins with Phillips's composition 'An On', which starts with a carnivalesque whirring of some sort of motor and a tin whistle, until the trio comes in and teases out a plodding theme. While neither Mumma nor Ashley are credited here, there's a heavy presence of tape loops, garbling and spinning slowly enough to interplay with the tonalities of the piano and bass quite beautifully, if you find this sort of thing beautiful (I do!). The piece utterly refuses to gel into a recognisable jazz form; that's saved for 'Wolfman'. This closer is the weirdest moment, simple because it sounds like Ashley's 'Wolfman' work (radios and voices) played overtop of a standard post-bop Bob James Trio jazz recording. It's a nice wall of sound, I guess, but there's no interplay, and it just comes off as a failed experiment, albeit not a terrible thing to sit through. The rest of the album is so curiously, cautiously groundbreaking that it fits because of the way it doesn't fit, and Ashley's work is pretty interesting on its own. I never really hear this record talked about much, which is a shame, because it's phenomenal, and tonally it's unlike anything else from the era that I've heard.

Hamiet Bluiett - 'Birthright' (India Navigation)

This is "a solo blues concert" and that's always a bold move; solo saxophone records are not an everyday thing and presenting yourself as this type of soloist in concert is often demanding. Hamiet presents here what I assume is an unedited concert, with extensive liner notes in a cursive font that is too hard to read. Here's what I like about this record: it's diverse, and the recording is such that you really get the live feel. You can hear the room, and you can hear him moving around different parts of the stage. Bluiett is definitely rooted in melodic and blues-based forms, but there are some excursions into circular breathing and heavy affectation that usually accentuate the intent of the piece. 'Doll Baby aka Song Service', the 10 minute opener, is a tribute to his grandmother; it introduces the theme of family and history that carries through the album. The piece moves through a few different movements - slow, placid tones at first, and then a more sinewy speedrush through the higher registers of his instrument. Side two's counterpoint is the 'My Father's House' 3-part suite, which is fast, free, and chunky. This and the subsquent 'In Tribute to Harry Carney' are both described as "free-form telepathic", which me question how a solo performance can involve telepathy. Unless he means his instrument has a mind of its own. I love the way baritone saxophones sound; if I played saxophone, it would be my choice, except I think it's too heavy. Heavy as in carrying it, I mean; the sound of the instrument can certainly carry some gravity too, but his pieces avoid being overbearing. The conceptual, personal nature of Birthright is a nice complement to Endangered Species' more mind-based strategies. Bluiett got his start playing in the Mingus band -- well, actualy he got his start in a St. Louis grade school under George Hudson,who gets his own ballad at the end of side one -- but you can feel the eternal Mingus swing underneath some of the more dazzling runs. There isn't really any point where I am overdazzled though - I'd never point to this as an example of technical mastery, though he is more than competent - for me this is a record that showcases the range of his voice amplified by the range of his heart. There are some squeaks and squawks, but they don't take away from the color of his tune.