4 by a man named Grachan Pt 1: New Africa (1969)

Grachan Moncur III - Part One: New Africa (1969)

Of the myriad instruments within the lexicon of jazz, it has to be said, the one that has drawn the focus of my own initial scepticism was the trombone. Simply too ‘trad’ I had thought, featuring much more in the big-band and traditional jazz ‘mainstreams’ than the radical ‘fusion’ and ‘free’ sub-stratums of modern jazz experimentalism. For me, the trombone had long been the sound of ‘cartoon-jazz,’ stereotypical and orthodox: the sound one heard in one’s mind when Marilyn Monroe’s skirt blew up over her knee-cap, or, at the very least, reminiscent of Glenn Miller’s In the fucking Mood. Certainly a key instrumental colour in terms of orchestrated large-scale arrangements, very rarely had I heard it successfully deployed as a solo instrument, barring the aforementioned, ‘traditional’ contexts.

Grachan Moncur III soon put paid to all that! A minor figure in sixties and early-seventies jazz, it was via my interest in the BYG Actuel label, that I first happened upon his work. Due to some of its unnecessarily excessive free jazz exponents, it was with caution (and often a test play), that I would venture into buying anything on BYG. Coming across Moncur’s second LP for the label, aco dei de madrugada (1969), I was surprised to hear a beautiful, poignantly cool, but still swinging, Latin-Afro-Jazz LP, that engaged with other ‘World music’ instrumental elements, and an overall free jazz approach to composition, arrangement and harmonic structure, that chimed in accord with some of Don Cherry’s later, mid-seventies works. More pointedly, the trombone was Moncur’s lead instrument, and with it he heads up his BYG LPs with a melancholy air and coolness of timbre and that only the aforementioned Cherry, and Miles Davis match, in my opinion. Strong claims, I know, but Moncur’s trombone playing really does achieve that formidable languid poise and enriched delicate mournfulness that Miles, at his most ennui-ridden, reaches. His LP’s (released over a 15-year period), offer a glimpse into a truly unsung jazz poet, and make a virtue of one of the most awkward, cumbersome and stereotypical of jazz instruments - documenting what is, in retrospect, a true alchemical process.

Part One - New Africa (BYG Actuel, 1969)

At the height of the free jazz movement, many exponents of the style who had come of age under the alluring shadow of the holy trinity of Saint John Coleman and Mingus (Cherry, Shepp, Braxton, Dolphy, Tchicai, Waldron et al.) relocated to Paris in the late sixties, given the warm welcome and respect offered there, which contrasted greatly with the frosty reception free jazz garnered from most critics in America. One of those people was trombonist, Grachan Moncur III, who had already released two LP’s as band leader on Blue Note - Evolution (1963) and Some Other Stuff (1964). After participating in many seminal jazz recordings of the 1960s - with the likes of Jackie McClean and Lee Morgan - Moncur relocated to the continent as part of Archie Shepp’s extended company of free jazz ’exiles,’ where BYG supremos

Jean Georgakarakos (usually known as "Karakos"), Jean-Luc Young and Fernand Boruso

, gave Moncur the chance at another date as leader. The ensuing sessions would birth two LPS - New Africa and Aco De Dei Madrugada (both 1969).

New Africa

begins with the huge four-movement title-suite, ‘New Africa,’ and 17 and-a-half-minute master class in structured ‘cool,’ spiritual jazz aesthetics and semi improvisational playing that displays an emotional warmth rarely found in this particular arena. ‘Part 1: Queen Tamam’ opens with a woozy ostinato in the bass and pianos, a slow lugubrious (and very mystical) groove that forms out of the ancient mist; a somehow neat-but-ramshackle drum riff clatters about, and the atmosphere concocted from the start is very afro-centric and spiritual - ritualistic mood music for the modern savage! It is absolutely fantastic and very affecting, a venerable tribute or prayer, in musical form, to some long lost saint maybe. The phrase returns throughout the piece as ghostly minor-key piano chords are added here and there. Similarities could be drawn with McCoy Tyner in particular, the ostentatious marching riffs of early Magma maybe (Vander obviously gobbled up the BYG/Paris sessions in the wake of Coltrane’s death looking for new takes), and overall Coltrane‘s earlier sixties material. In comes the introductory riff for ‘New Africa,’ as the two-note bass picks up into a trot, bumbling away tunefully in the background as Moncur’s soothing trombone offers a palliative for our modern angst - it is very ancient sounding, in the best way of the then-burgeoning Afro-Spiritual Jazz/World Fusion. Moncur’s first solo follows, full of little scurries up the scale, often syncopating with little phrases in the bass. The band really gets to swing on this part. Dave Burrell laying down lots of great Monk-like phases on ‘Part 3: Black Call’ - it all comes together with a repeat of the main theme and some remarkable drumming and cymbal work intermeshing with the wild edenic piccolo/flute playing for ‘Part 4: Ethiopian Market.’

Tension-filled side closer, ‘Space Spy’ could soundtrack a Sergio Leone-type gunfighters’ duel to the death - a hugely atmospheric two-note piano is constant throughout, like the beating of said gunfighter’s heart, whilst a lonesome Morricone-esque trumpet or trombone fills the pregnant air with Latin-type phrases (a musical flavour that would come centre stage for his next LP), With double basses rattling away in the low end and occasional shaken percussion, the piece always seems on the brink of exploding into a massive free jazz hoedown but (to its credit) never does, however, given this lack of variation, it is perhaps a little on the long side. Reminds me of Spanish Doom-Jazzers, Orthodox's recent direction actually.

‘Explorations’ sounds just like that, beginning with musical rush hour traffic skittish and skating about, held together (just!) by the fantastic be-bop type bass and cymbal pulse, as the brass provides blaring fog-horn emphases, and the piano skids about like a slack-pawed puppy dog, shooting about on a bed of ice. Its just the right side of ‘free’ for me, saved by the rhythm section really who give a fantastic performance throughout this 10 minute hard-bop monster! I’m sure there are lots of augmented ninths and compound time signatures going on here for the musos and technical-heads to appreciate. Personally, I’m all for the more atmospheric, cinematic and slightly more together take on free/afro-jazz that we have all over Side One.

Thankfully, Moncur returns to this on the opening moments of closing 12-minute track, ‘When’ which is a beautiful slow-paced swinger, replete with buoyant walking bass line, and a great sax solo by Archie Shepp which is Coltrane-d to the max! It’s a finger snapper alright, but also very experimental in certain respects - the tricky, stumbling drum patterns for example, and the extended brass solos which layer proper intense shrinking over lugubrious rhythms and a fulsome groove. Aligning, like some set of distant stars, from time to time, the track has the constant feel of Coltrane’s classic opening phrases for “Blue Train.” Gradually, the blowing gets harder and more intense, as the piano vamps away on the charted chords, sign posts for the increasingly wayward brass solos. Like most of the free jazz stuff(ish) I like - it I precisely that: free jazz (ISH), retaining enough shape and form overall to add to the power of this piece in particular, and the LP in general.

DONCHERRY'S BROWN RICE - A WORLD FUSION MASTERPIECE

Don Cherry - Brown Rice (1975).
Let me say this much: Don Cherry was one radical, forward-thinkin’ mo-fo, make no mistake! Yes, this cat played on Free Jazz, for Frith’s sake, 196o’s original squak-athon par excellence. He also collaborated with Krystof Penderecki on Actions in 1969 - tempting the Polish arch-modernist into the realms of free-jazz (& rock) expression I’m told, for which they were joined by Peter Brontzman and Terje Rydal; another LP to look out for. As if that wasn’t enough, Cherry also contributed to the soundtrack for Alejandro Jodorwosky’s surreal epic of psychedelicised psychosexual shock and Buddhist mysticism: The Holy Mountain (1973). This was all BEFORE releasing one of the most impressive exercises in Jazz/World/Funk/Psych hybridisation: Barring Miles of course.

I’ve always believed that the avant-garde composers of the sixties - be they classical or jazz - made they’re best works when they made a small concession to populism. Hence, Penderecki’s St Luke Passion (1966) sounds much more powerful, and much more disconcerting as a result, than his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima of (1960); because, for me, it articulates the antagonisms between populist and experimental cultural idioms. And such is the case with Cherry’s Brown Rice (as opposed to say his Symphony for Improvisors of 1966…).

Track 1: “Brown Rice” - A plonked piano and ghostly female vocal intone a world-weary 8-note refrain, until a wah-ed up double-bass and guitar start to funk it up in the background. Adding percussive exclamations, Cherry himself then begins whispering mystical sweet nothings into our ears. An eerie spirituality pervades the very essence of this whacked out piece, prompting huge bird-like shrieks from the sax - speaking in tongues indeed! - and frequent “Tcka-Tcka Tcka’s” from Cherry’s vocal. This opening number “Brown Rice” is a truly beautiful piece - funky, but light and airy at the same time - lots of space between - it has religious connotations and a righteous groove - almost Motorik in its insistence - that eight-note sequence never giving up. We never really hear his prayers to the Brown stuff - but given Don suffered a 20 year-long addiction to heroin - we might not have to think long and hard? Maybe he just really dug rice! It doesn’t matter, what counts is the groove right? And this is one hell of an opening to a truly awesome Jazz rites-of-passage.

Track 2: “Malkauns” - begins with a chiming tamboura (Cherry was apparently trained in composition for wood flutes, tamboura, amongst other sundry musical instruments), and the huge lolloping wah-acoustic bass of Charlie Haden begins to blossom, long gurgling notes keeping the tension taut, until, eventually the piece picks up tempo and Cherry’s Miles-like horn tattoos you into submission. Ok, the bass raga maybe goes on a little to long at the beginning, but no one was ever gonna tell these jazz cats to edit man, it was to unhip. And when the groove kicks in, we are again into the those highest soaring melodies that only Africa-centric Miles reached (esp. Sketches for Spain) and possibly Coltrane - the plains are opening up to the landscape of the psyche, and we are all truly humbled. Max Roach-like Rat-at-tat drums churn away, until it lollops to a pause, with that long, luxurious bass twang and tamboura returning for the coda.

Track 3: “Chenrezig” - Ethnic chanting shows the diversity of Cherry’s musical scope, as this dude regularly deployed World music influences into the overall jazz idiom - of course (as Ken Scott claims apropos of some composer or other in his landmark TV movie), it was precisely Jazz that had the elasticity of definition to cope with such disparate influences - that musicians like Terje (pronounced “Terry”) Rydal, Miles Davis, and Don Cherry would subsequently bring to bear on the movement in the seventies - a process which would leave many of the jazz ‘classicists’ aghast Summoning some long lost beast an African-sounding vocal chant - the bass is a complete rumble - like a load of bricks covered in rubber in Faust’s cement mixer - until this slowly breaks into a full-on Magma-ed-to-the-max piano strut, strange Vander-esque vocal effects, but done on trumpet - huge squealing sax blasts of discord rub against the incessant piano riff while Cherry scat sings. Actually, its remarkably akin to the Lula Cortez’ et Z Ramalho LP I reviewed a while back for Head Heritage.com and has a very ritualistic feel. This track is very Magma, an African-ised Magma maybe.

Track 4: “Degi-Degi” - A sequenced synthesiser of some sorts and a oily electric guitar skate away (on the thin ice of a new day - sorry couldn’t resist it), Cherry’s ominous whispered vocal is back, insinuating itself into the subconscious, while chiming Rhodes are patted along to the speedy synthesiser sequential. [Tangerine Dream if Cherry would have guested on their Cyclone LP maybe]. This is fantastic stuff! An inspiring headlong groove tumbles along while rum guitar-phonk slithers around the arrangement - loitering with intent or should that be malcontent!! Cherry is whispering about “the Goddess of Music,” and we are truly all tranced out by this point - huge celebratory trumpet blasts out - a right ole’ royal hoedown. There is really nothing much like this that I can use for a comparison - Cherry’s Brown Rice is that original - there are hints of Magma, Bitches-period Miles, Nosferatu-period Popol Vuh, the Holy Mountain soundtrack, even the proto-rap of Last Poets et al.

What can I say. Its one of those true epiphanies for me - E (FUCKING) SSENTIAL!!!

POWER TO BELIEVE

KING CRIMSON: The Power To Believe (2003)
If ever there was a group worthy of introducing a musical blog dedicated to the ‘unorthodoxy’ and ‘un-commerciality,’ then KING CRIMSON are it. Feted throughout avant-rock circles, band leader, Robert Fripp, has shown scant regard for commercial concessions of any kind. If King Crimson are to be known for anything these days, barring their (considerable) past glories, then it’s as a band STILL pushing the ‘rock’ format onward - a direct riposte to those who claim rock music has nothing new to say, with no new ways of saying it! That’s not to say they never put a foot wrong: indeed, many of their main phases are (frustratingly) capped with a disappointing entry into the canon (Islands, Beat, Thrakattack). That said, the late 90s and early 2000’s have witnessed something of a renaissance for King Crimson. Their double-trio dates in the mid-nineties, if not always succeeding on stage, certainly worked on record, and this re-birth has been compounded in the new millennium, bringing Crimson renewed critical kudos, (the sudden interest in all things progressive has, of course, helped).One critique often levelled at King Crimson is their supposed over-reliance on massed ranks of musical technology. However, I would argue this is less a reliance, than a skilled, pioneering application of digitalised ‘tech-ware‘. Indeed, Crimson stand alone in this field, as one of the only true examples of the late-60s ‘Rock rear-guard’ who apply digital musical technology in a way so as to still AVOID the overly clinical, vacuous digital-ness common to modern rock music from the 1980s onwards. Early signs were visible on The ConstrucKtion of Light, although that LP lacked the beefy production aesthetic that is, thankfully, at the very heart of this late-masterpiece: The Power To Believe (2003).
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Fripp, in particular, manipulates digital realms in order to investigate timbre, space, pitch and resonance - not to do a clean-up job on them. On a more general level, the band, as it stands today, can easily stand alongside the formal iconoclasts of today’s post-rock community; more often than not, proving a central and abiding influence upon such bands (Mars Volta, Tortoise et al.). Take opening number, “The Power To Believe I: A Cappella” for example. Adrian Belew’s vocal performance is digitally filtered so that weird fractal sprays of gaseous sound issue forth from the main sonic spine of vocal, delayed reverbs flitter and wobble around this spine, as a distorted veil of sound is draped over it. Crimson then blast in with an earth-shaking riff that introduces “Level Five,” an endless maze of a riff, densely packed within one of the band’s unusually odd time signatures. Trey Gunn’s Warr Fretless Guitar (a kind of weird bass/guitar hybrid) - provides a bass undertow like no other, as if the very tectonic plates upholding our continents are rent asunder to its mighty sway. It’s a devilishly cavernous bass sound, full of throaty resonance, and the performance as a whole is as if Dante’s Inferno is erupting from within the speakers, the guitars and drums full of anxiety and shifting sonorities. This is Crimson at their very finest, make no mistake!
Something often forgot about King Crimson is that, for all their musical and improvisational virtuosity, technological expertise, experimental brio, and harmonic daring, they are a band that writes SONGS also. You can just imagine Duke-era Genesis butchering a song like “Eyes Wide Open,” but in these capable hands it remains compelling for more than just its top line and harmonic/rhythmic base. “Facts of Life” is a muscular, but hook laden, power stomp, full of metal-like staccato ur-riffs ricocheting around the stereo-band, as the chorus breaks free in a similar way to VDGG’s Killer. “The Power to Believe II” starts the albums most impressive segment a middle eastern scale played on a heavily-treated guitar-synth buzzes in and out of earshot, while a glassy, wet rhythm box pounds out in the background. In many ways similar to their own “Sheltering Sky” from Discipline, segues into a beautiful gamelan percussive riff with breathy flute sound-alike blowing a cool breeze across the top - its very hypnotic and tender, almost ramshackle, as if it could blow away at any time, but it tugs at the heart strings like no other - as huge sub-bass drones ululate up from the depths - the initial vocal that opened the album returns accompanying this tune - huge oily fretless bass notes tremble as Fripp provides one of his best trademark sustained guitar solos. It’s a staggering piece of music, and as if it couldn’t get any better, Crimson lurch into “Dangerous Curves” - an update of their Gustav Holst-borrowing number from 1970’s In the Wake of Poseidon, “The Devil’s Triangle.” A sinister sounding string-synth pulls discordantly at the main harmonic foundation created by the bass staccato, as musical elements are gradually added, it erupts into a kind of futurist-electronic spy theme, until ferocious guitars belt out the beat - the musical neurosis increasing until it finally dissipates into a final raspy guitar chord - like the dying breath of an evil witch. “Happy with what you have to be happy with” is one of Adrian Belew’s post-modern lyrical experiments in self-reflexivity (I’m gonna have to write a chorus, We’re gonna repeat a chorus”). The LP ends with a final return to the title track - a more experimental take full of odd time-signatures and winsome guitar cries. This wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Red - its sinewy, clunky bass sound a dead ringer for John Wetton.
Given the resurgence of interest in prog rock, its easy to forget that Crimson have (barring a few short gaps) been steadily ploughing their own furrow for more than 40 years. And this LP shows that Crimson are one of few prog stalwarts left who have a ready audience their, for new interesting material, and not just celebratory “greatest hits” package tours.