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Chris
McGregor’s
Brotherhood
Of Breath
Eclipse At Dawn
CUNEIFORM RUNE 262
★★★★
No big band’s music
embodied life and
death struggle quite
like the Brotherhood
of Breath’s. On the one hand, their blend of
Duke Ellington- and Charles Mingus-inspired
charts with unbridled collective improvisation
made them one of the most exciting jazz acts to
tour the U.K. and Europe during the ’70s.
Bring them up to English jazz aficionados of a
certain age and you’ll hear deep “those were
the days” sighs.
But tragedy and misunderstanding hovered
about the band, whose core members were
South African exiles. Joe Boyd, who booked
them and produced their first album, recounts in
his memoir White Bicycles how early struggles
with the British Musician’s Union kept them in
poverty; even after they got their cards, the combative
crew’s alcohol-stoked rants in Xhosa discomfited
concert organizers as much as their
uninhibited music challenged a then-moribund
British jazz scene. All of the exiles, save Louis
Moholo, who finally moved back to South
Africa a few years ago, are now dead, which
makes this album seem especially precious.
Recorded at the Berliner Jazztage in 1971, it is
the third in Cuneiform’s series of archival
releases culled from live tapes.
Taken on its own merits, this is
a splendid performance. The band
was a little smaller than usual—
trumpeter Mongezi Feza was
somewhere else that night, and
future improv stars like Evan
Parker or Radu Malfatti had not
yet joined—but their 11 pieces
still trump anyone else’s 20. The
material, all penned by McGregor
and other group members except
the title tune by Abdullah Ibrahim, sports rich,
indelible melodies and brisk tempos that organically
dissolve into and resolve from ebullient
collectively improvised passages. The solos
scorch; in particular, trumpeter Marc Charig and
tenor saxophonist Gary Windo impress with
their delivery of clear ideas at a break-neck pace.
Moholo and McGregor’s duet on “Restless”
is especially thrilling, with the pianist sketching
fleet lines over drumming that obliterates clichés
about engine rooms with the sense that the boiler
just exploded. McGregor keeps a lower profile
elsewhere, unaccountably switching to a much
quieter instrument that is identified in the liner
notes as an upright but sounds to me like an
under-amplified electric piano. Which raises the
record’s sole caveat—the sound quality, which
is marred by a slightly muffled recording and
McGregor’s dodgy instruments. —Bill Meyer
Eclipse At Dawn: Introduction By Ronnie Scott; Nick Tete;
Restless; Do It; Eclipse At Dawn; The Bride; Now; Funky Boots
March; Ronnie Scott And Chris McGregor Sendoff And
Applause. (64:15)
»
Ordering info: cuneiformrecords.com
Brian Blade
Season Of
Changes
VERVE B0010696
★★★★
For most drummerled
ensembles, the
idea of an album
with nary a drum
solo smacks of sacrilege.
For Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band,
though, individual vainglory has always been
trumped by a strong sense of collective purpose.
Season Of Changes skillfully continues the trend
and marks the group’s first outing in eight years.
Among the changes this season: The septet has
been trimmed to six with the departure of pedal
steel player Dave Easley, who added salt-of-theearth
ambiance on the group’s first two discs.
In keeping with the Fellowship Band’s contemplative
esthetic, the new release is steeped in
spiritual yearning. Blade interlaces his compositions
with dramatic flair and soft sobriety, asserting
himself on the skins when needed but never
overwhelming the group’s tender balance of
voices. The album’s compositional jewels come
from pianist Jon Cowherd. On the epic
title track and “Return Of The Prodigal
Son,” Cowherd’s weighty melodic statements
channel elegiac and joyous spirits,
all over a harmonic framework that
invites probing, occasionally soaring
solos from guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel,
alto saxophonist Myron Walden and
tenor saxophonist Melvin Butler.
“Rubylou’s Lullaby” eases the listener
into the album nicely with stark piano
and guitar, but needs more edge once tenor and
bass clarinet join in with the melody—the reeds
sound a little too sweet for their own good.
Although a few moments on Season Of
Changes verge on melodrama, the album as a
whole is a moving piece of work. Rarely does
such unabashedly serious, artful music come in
such a listenable package. —Eric Bishop
Season Of Changes: Rubylou’s Lullaby; Return Of The Prodigal
Son; Stoner Hill; Season Of Changes; Most Precious One; Most
Precious One (Prodigy); Improvisation; Alpha And Omega;
Omni. (46:27)
Personnel: Brian Blade, drums; Jon Cowherd, piano, pump
organ, Moog, Wurlitzer; Kurt Rosenwinkel, guitar; Myron
Walden, alto saxophone, bass clarinet; Melvin Butler, tenor saxophone;
Chris Thomas, bass.
»
Ordering info: vervemusicgroup.com