BRITISH JAZZ AND POETRY - 1959 - 1965

It's often said that the British are a literary nation, particularly when discussing the nation's relationship to visual arts.
However, we are also a nation that likes music and in the early part of the sixties, very briefly, there seemed to be a moment when literary words and jazz might become bedfellows.
Jazz and poetry had already been having a liaison in the United States. The beats, in the main, loved jazz. Writers and poets such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac and Kenneth Rexroth recorded their poetry in jazz settings and many others praised the world of jazz in their work. The relationship between the beats and jazz was by no means straight forward and it has been pointed out that the racial tensions of 50s America were revealed in this relationship. Nevertheless one of the aspects that made jazz so appealing to the beats was that is was seen to be music from outside the (white) mainstream. It was, according to them, music that was somehow more in touch with emotions and music that was part of the popular, rather than highbrow, culture.

In Britain the worlds of jazz and poetry didn't make it on to vinyl until 1959 when Red Bird, Jazz and Poetry by poet Christopher Logue and drummer and band leader Tony Kinsey was released.

In some ways Logue could be seen as the link between the beats and British jazz-poetry. In the mid-1950's he lived in Paris and became friends with Scottish poet/writer and heroin addict Alexander Trocchi. Trocchi later moved to the US where he moved in beat circles.
Logue was also something of an outsider as he was a pacifist who was very involved in both anti-war and anti-nuclear arms movements. Both of these interests aligned him to many in the British jazz world.
According to the sleeve notes, the pieces on this EP were originally broadcast on the BBC.
Logue is a very intriguing poet, not least for the ways in which his political views were expressed in his work. Although he could be direct, often the politically message is implicit rather than explicit.
Logue performs his poetry while the music is played behind him by Les Condon, Kenny Wray, Bill Le Sage, Kenny Napper and Tony Kinsey - all names that will be familiar to anyone with even the slightest knowledge of British jazz. Le Sage and Kinsey composed the music around Logue poetry and it shows. Logue's voice, with it's received English pronunciation and slightly arch and melodramatic delivery, is pushed to the front of the mix, with the effect that the music is often background to the words. This split between the music and the words is alluded to on the record sleeve which lists each track as having a name for the poem and a different name for the music. Largely the poems deal with romantic problems, or rather the hypocrisies of 'modern' love.
Listen for yourself. I feel that the You tube poster dismisses Logue and the music too quickly. Although I have to admit I don't often listen to this EP, it is wrong to approach it as a comedic relic.

If you want to hear Logue and Jazz getting it on beautifully then you must track down Annie Ross with the Tony Kinsey Quintet.

There is another slightly earlier edition of this record called Loguerhythms from 1963 - mine is on Xtra from 1966.
Annie and Tony and the band reprise songs for the LP that they have been performing at Soho's Establishment Club, owned by Peter Cook and dedicated to the new satire boom.
Logue's anti-establishment words must have fitted in perfectly in such a setting, however, to modern ears they sound very dated. The targets of these barbed words (capitalism, conformity, class) no longer raise the ire of audiences. Either we have become inured to the inequalities of the world or they have been solved - take your pick.
Ross is one of my all time favourite jazz singers. Like Sinatra, she sings without seeming to try. Her delivery is so natural that it fits Logue's complex words very well. Although she is singing, she does so in a way that retains the spoken-word delivery of performance poetry.
Kinsey is joined by most of his cohorts from the Red Bird recording together the Peter King, Brian Brockelhurst, Gordon Beck, Roy Willocks, Malcolm Cecil, Johnny Scott and Stanley Myers.
Just as with Red Bird the words are pushed to the foreground and are clearly meant to be the most important part of the ensemble., However, with a voice as good as Ross's that is no hardship.

Logue would further successfully mix his poetry to music when Donovan set his poem Be Not Too Hard to music in the film Poor Cow in 1967 and Joen Baez went on to cover it.

However, Logue was not the only poet that was attracted to jazz. A very different approach led to the release of Poetry and Jazz in Concert One and Two in 1964 on Argo. Argo was a fairly small but diverse record label that had released a number of recordings of poetry readings, plays, adaptations of novels and other spoken word projects, not to mention a number of recordings of steam trains.

The rational for the Poetry and Jazz was to harness some of the power (as well as the popularity) of the two art forms to their mutual benefit Intriguingly, of the musicians, Michael Garrick, Shake Keane and Joe Harriott were also deeply involved with literature. Shake Keane wrote his own poetry although he did not get much published while in England. I wonder what he though about the poets he accompanied, and about the irony of a situation of a poet playing trumpet for other poets? Did he ever want to put his trumpet down and read some of his verse? And why did no one ask him? Garrick was an English Literature student and would often use literary sources as inspiration for his music, while Harriott had been friendly with Michael Horovitz for some time. These LPs are the only recorded relics of the Poetry and Jazz movement, although there were numerous concerts and recitals throughout the mid to late 60s.

A meeting between Michael Garrick and the poet Jeremy Robson lead to a fusion of the somewhat underground jazz world and a poetry world that Robson was determined to bring above ground. Garrick brought Harriott, Keane and later Coleridge Goode on board as part of the band that would accompany the poets during their recitals. Poets such as Laurie Lee, Ted Hughes., Stevie Smith and Dannie Abse were involved at one stage or another, Not all of them were comfortable with a jazz accompaniment and on these LPs, it is only Adrian Mitchell, for his poem Pals and Jeremy Robson for his poems Approaching Mount Carmel and The Midnight Scene that have the band behind them.

The jazz is impeccable. Salvation March and Wedding Hymn on the first LP and Vishnu and She's Like Swallow are great examples of the inventiveness of mid sixties British jazz. They are all Garrick compositions but Harriott and Keane undoubtedly bring their own style. Together with Goode, they had only recently finished recording the last album in their Free Form style and in parts that iconoclastic style can be heard. Garrick was undoubtedly sympathetic to the Free Form experiment although his music is too lyrical and open to so many influences that it can never quite be subsumed into Free Form. My personal favourite is Vishnu which has some incredible solos from both Harriott and Keane as well as some amazing examples of how completely they could play as a single unit and Goode's bass solo on Wedding March is as good an example of his talent as you could wish to hear.

The poetry often touches on the same concerns as Logue's verses, class, hypocrisy, capitalism, and a counter-cultural view of the establishment. Jazz, of course, also played its part in this. Interestingly, however, by 1963 it was not a truly popular music and certainly not popular in the same was as it had been during the bid band ere in the 50s. Pop music and rock and roll were soon to be edging jazz out of people's houses. However, in 1963 jazz, and in particular the type of modern jazz played by Garrick and Harriott could be seen as an intellectual form of popular music that embodied many of the anti-establishment ideas then-current. I think it is telling that modern jazz was thought to be suitable for a concert in which the audience was seated. Long gone were the days when jazz automatically meant dancing. While you could dance to some of Garrick's music I suspect that none in the audience did.

Although Poetry and Jazz had a life that lasted well beyond these two LPs, none of it was recorded. The uneasy split between the music and the poetry, evident when you listen and clearly acknowledged by the reluctance of most of the poets to put their words to music, meant that there were no more recordings. Adrian Mitchell would go on to record with folk musician and wordsmith Leon Rosselson. I feel that, for Mitchell, this is a much more suitable setting.

 While this was the end of contemporary poetry and jazz it was not quite the end of the intersection of jazz and poetry. In 1965 Stan Tracey released his Jazz Suite inspired by Under Milk Wood.
Undoubtedly one of the highlights of British Jazz, Tracey's Under Milk Wood it a beautiful record that demands repeated listening. 

Tracey, together with Bobby Wellins on sax, Jeff Clyne on bass and Jack Dougan on drums take Thomas's famous long poem as a the starting point for making heart rending beautiful music.
However, I am not sure that the listener would immediately connect any of the songs on this record with Thomas. Nowhere are Thomas's words used in the music, although they do provide the names of the songs.
There is a later reissue of this record which is not expensive and I urge everyone to track down a copy and luxuriate in the beautiful music.

1964 was the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare and to commemorate it two jazz records were released that used his verses as their basis.

The better of the two was Swinging the Bard by the Ken Jones Orchestra with Elaine Delmar. It also benefits from the inclusion of Shake Keane, Stan Tracey, Eddie Blair and Kenny Baker.
The music is provided by David Lindup, David Mack (read about his work with Shake Keane here and his work with Joe Harriott here), Ray Premu (read about him here), Johnny Hawksworth and John Mayer (read about his work with Harriott here). Phew!
Using the Elizabethan Consort of Viols and Geoffrey Emmott's Recorder Consort, together with the Bard's words this is a surprisingly effective set of songs. Unfortunately the weakest element is the married between the words and the music. Delmar is a good singer and tackles the lines with aplomb but it just doesn't swing as the title would have you believe.
David Mack's contribution is very cinematic and Keane's playing is wonderful. Meyer's piece, tablas and all, seems in some ways to be a precursor to his Indo Jazz experiments that would begin in the following year. However, his classical training, rather than his love of jazz, is all to evident here.
While there is nothing here that lifts itself above the conceit of the concept it is a great listen from start to finish. Shakespeare-ploitation anyone?

Dankworth and Cleo Laine attempt a similar exercise on their Shakespeare and All That Jazz.
Unfortunately it is not as successful as Jones's effort.
Laine's singing is good and Dankworth's music, while not breaking any boundaries is also interesting.
Unfortunately the Bard's words stubbornly refuse to translate to a jazz setting and as such the whole exercise falls flat.

THE WATTS TOWERS AND JAZZ RECORD SLEEVES

The Watts Towers in Los Angeles are fascinating examples of outsider art, public art, community art, and inventive engineering.
They have come to stand as symbols not just of the place in which they were build, the Watts area of Los Angeles, but also of racial politics in California as well as the United States.
I am fascinated by them, both as a unique work of art and as structures that have developed symbolic meaning that go well beyond anything their creator may have envisaged.
In his phantasmagorical autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, Charles Mingus, who grew up in Watts describes the Watts Towers thus: "At that time in Watts there was an Italian man, named Simon Rodia - though some people said his name was Sabatino Rodella, and his neighbours called him Sam. He had a regular job as a tile setter, but on weekends and at night time, under lights he strung up, he was building something strange and mysterious and he'd been working on it since before my boy was born. Nobody knew what it was or what is was for. Around his small frame house he made a low wall shaped like a ship and inside it he was constructing what looked like three masts, all different heights, shaped like upside down ice cream cones. First he would set up skeletons of metal and chicken wire, and plaster them over with concrete, then he'd cover that with fancy designs made of pieces of seashells and mirrors and things. He was always changing his ideas while he worked and tearing down what he wasn't satisfied with and starting over again, so pinnacles tall as a two storey building would rise up and disappear and rise again. What was there yesterday mightn't be there next time you looked, but another lacy-looking tower would spring up in its place.
Tig Johnson and Cecil J. McNeeley used to gather sacks full of pretty rocks and broken bottles to take to Mr Rodia, and my boy hung around with them watching him work while he waited for Gloria Stopes, one of his classmates who happened to live across the street....
Mr Rodia was usually cheerful and friendly while he worked, and sometimes, drinking that good red wine from a bottle, he rattled off about Amerigo Vespucci, Julius Caesar, Buffalo Bill and all kinds of things he read about in the old encyclopedia he had in his house, but most of the time it sounded to Charles like he was speaking a foreign language. My boy marvelled at what he was doing and felt sorry for him when the local rowdies came around and taunted him and threw rocks and called him crazy, though Mr Rodia didn't seem to pay them much mind. Years later when Charles was grown and went back to Watts he saw three fantastic spires standing there - the tallest was over a hundred feet high. By then Rodia had finally finished his work and given it all to a neighbour as a present and gone away, no one knew where."
Buddy Collette,. who grew up with Mingus in Watts, described Rodia and his creation in this way: "Simon Rodia was a little Italian guy with an old, dirty hat; a very quiet man, who didn't seem to have any friends and lived alone. Most of the neighbours ignored him and he didn't talk much. I don't know if he spoke English. Although he was a full-grown man, it seemed he weighed only about 100 pounds. He carried an old burlap sack on his back that he'd fill with little rocks, bottle caps, broken bottles, shells and all that material he was gathering to build his towers. Mingus and I would take these gum machines and put them on the railroad tracks. When the Watts Red Cars would come by, they would break the cast iron bottoms, which held all the pennies, maybe five dollars worth, which was a big haul. There would be a lot of litter like that among the tracks and Rodia would pick it up and make the most of it. Simon knew what he was doing with it, but we had no clue. Most people thought, 'That crazy guy, what's he building?' We had never seen anything like that before and he just kept adding to the structures. It wasn't until later that we could see that the guy was very artistic and knew what he was doing."
Rodia built the structures, as outlined in the above descriptions, by hand from found materials. He did not use a scaffold, a blowtorch or power tools. Instead he used a system of pulleys to winch himself and thousands of tonnes of cement and materials up and down the towers. In 1954, having worked on the towers since 1921, he stopped work, and as outlined by Mingus, gave his land and towers to a neighbour and disappeared. He never explained his work or attempted to justify or recreate it.
As Mingus and Collette's descriptions show, while he was building the towers, his neighbours gave him little encouragement and failed to empathise with his work. Watts during the 1930s and 1940s was a racially mixed area but Rodia seems not to have made any effort to mix with those around him. Instead he worked alone and without any need to consult local opinion.

However, four years after he disappeared Harold Land released Harold In the Land of Jazz (my copy is a later issue retitled Grooveyard).
This was Land's first record as a leader, and although not born in California he was by this time a stalwart of the West Coast jazz scene.
West Coast album sleeves of the period were, in my view, beautifully designed and photographed, in particular those for Pacific Jazz by William Claxton.
However, if they did include references to LA or California these tended to be of the beach or the sea, sometimes of the desert as in Sonny Rollins Way Out West sleeve or other rural locations such as that for Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section.
In just four years the Watts Towers had gone from weird aberration to structures that conveyed a message. What was that message?
In 1958 the Towers were under threat of demolition by the city authorities who claimed that they were unsafe and dangerous to local inhabitants. Instead a local, grassroots group bought the Towers with the intention of preserving them. The city authorities, already engaged in a programme of closing public arts programmes, attempting to control sites of cultural activities and suspicious of contemporary art, through attempting to close down what was a local symbol only succeed in creating a local movement.
Could Land's album cover be a comment on the repressive efforts of local government as they attempted to control the LA arts scene, is it a comment on pride in a racial mixed area, or in unity of a local movement, or could it simply be a statement about pride in a predominantly black area of the city in which he lived? I like to think that there is a similarity between his sax and the structures behind him.

 It wouldn't be until 1968 that the Watts Towers would appear on the cover of a jazz record.
Big Black's Message to our Ancestors is, as you might expect, a showcase for his impressive percussion skills. With only a flautist and some vocal encouragement accompanying him, this record is largely a percussive tour de force. Black, who played with Olatunji, Freddie Hubbard and Randy Weston amongst others, was well versed in African music (he also played with Hugh Masakela).
As you can see from his leopard print shirt and hat, he was at this point in his career fully "an exponent of African music" as the sleeve notes state.
What, then is he doing in front of a structure made by an Italian in Los Angeles?
In 1965 Watts was the centre of one of the largest civil uprisings in US history, requiring the National Guard to suppress it. A frustrated response to high unemployment, a dire educational system, a lack of social services, a history of police violence and a dearth of public transportation, the riot left 34 people dead, 1,032 injured and about 4,000 arrested.
The riots immediately changed how the Towers would be seen as they changed how Watts was perceived. Watts become associated with violent crime, urban blight and black revolution.
Big Black's Afrocentric stance, in his music and clothes, therefore chimes with his positioning in front of the Watts Towers. He is saying not only that he has pride in his African ancestry, a pride that was becoming more widespread and strident amongst black Americans but also that this pride in his ancestry was linked to contemporary events and actions in the United States. The Towers post-Watts Riots now served as a symbol of embattled racial politics as well as racial pride.

 Willie Bobo's 1971 record, Do What You Want to Do isn't really a jazz record,. But I'm including it not just because of his jazz credentials but also because I think it shows another shift in the symbolism of the Towers.
Bobo's group, the terribly named Bo-Gents, included black, white and latino musicians. While this may not have been anything special in 1971, the fact that they chose to be photographed in front of the Watts Towers is significant.
The Towers have changed from symbolising a type of black militant ism to symbolising great equality. Given that the 1970s saw the hardening of conservative opinion towards inner city areas which led to a lack of empathy and reduced financial support, Bobo's statement of racial unity specifically located at a site that was known as place of racial tension was a brave move. However, I think it has a wider significance beyond the Watts area. The Towers are a symbol of urban LA, perhaps one of the few that is instantly recognisable to people outside of California. Was Bobo making a point about the wider situation in the city, one where racial tensions and property development were mixing to undermine what little unity there was in the city's population as so brilliantly exposed in  Mike Davis's City of Quartz?

Don Cherry's Brown Rice is an incredible record and deserves a review of its own (which I will probably give it as some stage).
Cherry, of course, had come to prominence in LA as part of Ornette Coleman's group and had been instrumental in developing what would become termed free jazz.
For Brown Rice, Cherry drew on Arabic, African and Indian music to create a truly unique sound.
Yet, on the cover of the LP he is posing with the Watts Towers in the background. Interestingly for the CD reissue the photo is cropped to cut out the Watts Towers.
The racial unity expressed by Willie Bobo on his sleeve is now extended beyond the city of LA to the whole world. The Towers have come to symbolise not only the potential of Watts but of the whole world, perhaps as people are brought together through music.

From the localised message of Harold Land's record through to those of Cherry's we have seen how the Tower's meanings have changed and been adopted by jazz musicians who are seeking to use them to express their own messages. Situated in a neighbourhood that has seen enormous racial tension, famously exploding into violence, the Tower's have come to symbolise not just local pride but also racial (and musical)
openness.

That sense of the music uniting different people has been adopted since 1977 by the Watts Jazz Festival.

Not a great record (although Willie Bobo's contributions are suitably cooking) but it is an incredible photo of the Towers.

The jazz festival continues to this day.

THE PAUL BLEY QUARTET - SOLEMN MEDITATION

Excuse this slightly rambling post. I;m trying to work out some ideas on the fly so I hope some, at least, makes sense!


Don't expect Paul Bley's Solemn Mediation to be as exotic as the cover might make out. There is Paul, looking very serious and preppy with his buzz cut and button-down shirt but still without shoes, reading a book at the foot of the Buddha. What is he reading? Is it a religious text, is he seeking enlightenment, is he in some way meditating? Meditation, Buddha, a quest for knowledge, possibly a jungle behind him, all of these things point to the record being concerned with Eastern spirituality. Is this record going to be in any way exotic I hear you ask.

Solemn Meditation was released in 1958, the same year as another pianist called Martin Denny released Exotica. The covers of both records evoke and unnamed 'other' place with east Asian overtones. The titles of the Bley compositions, are Drum Two and Beau Diddley with Dave Pike contributing Persian Village. Compare these to Quiet Village, Love Dance, Ami Wa Furi and Waipio on Exotica. However, the two record could not be more different despite these superficial similarities.

Denny's group and Bley's were quartets, both also including vibes, Arthur Lyman in Denny's group and Dave Pike in Bley's and neither group featured brass players.
Why am I comparing these two records you might ask? I want to draw some parallels with non-American influences in jazz and in 'pop' or in Denny's case exotica.
Of course the most obvious difference between the two records is that the music on Bley's record is much more clearly in the jazz idiom. He covers songs written by Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge as well as Porgy from Gershwin's jazz influenced musical. Meanwhile Denny relies heavily on Les Baxter who, although recording a number of records with the word jazz in the title (Jungle Jazz, African Jazz), writing for prominent swing bands in the 1940s and experimenting with rhythms and instruments from Latin America and elsewhere, is not considered to be a jazz musician.
While i grant you there is considerably less swing in Denny's record it is clearly as concerned with the nature of sounds and rhythm as Bley's. Indeed at times I can hear Dave Brubeck's experiments underneath the bird calls and percussion flourishes.
What is also missing on the Denny record are the clear references throughout Solemn Meditation to other jazz musicians and trends, most notably bop and pianists such as Bud Powell and fellow Canadian Oscar Peterson.
Strangely what I don't hear on Solemn Meditation is much experimentation. Given that Bley was, at the time of recording this record, playing with Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry and that his bassist Charlie Hadden would go on to join the Colemen group, Solemn Meditation is solidly in the bop tradition.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Exotica is more experimental than Solemn Meditation but perhaps it pointed the way for a new direction in a way that Solemn Meditation did not. Remember that both Coltrane and Yusef Lateef listened to and liked exotica records before they discovered field recordings. What they were listening for were new instruments, unusual sounds and original approaches to composition.

To be continued.........

PETER BURMAN'S JAZZ TETE A TETE

This record is a Britjazz obscurity. Recorded in 1962 it reveals British jazz trying to find a distinctive British (as opposed to American) voice. The role and influence of America on the jazz music of the rest of the world is a hotly debated issue. Here we get a glimpse of some of the leading jazz musicians in Britain in the early sixties attempting to pull away from the enormous influence of American jazz and create a new indigenous kind of jazz music. 

Peter Burman ran a nightclub in 1960s London called the El Toro and was also involved in the National Jazz Federation. Many well known British jazz musicians played the El Toro and Burman used it as a place to identify and promote (in all meanings of the word) musicians who he felt had promise. Thus he brought to the attention of the BBC some of the leading jazz bands of the period. Bands he recommended would be auditioned by the BBC and, if they passed, were given the opportunity to appear on the radio.
This led to Burman organising concerts, which he called Jazz Tete a Tete's, in the Recital Room at the Royal Festival Hall. These concerts were broadcast on the BBC's Jazz Club.
Although none of the broadcasts survive Burman, with the help of the ubiquitous Denis Preston, managed to get some of the musicians to record in Preston's Lansdowne Studios. This record is the result of these sessions.

If I'm honest what first drew me to this LP was the presence of Shake Keane. Keane had already recorded some of the most adventurous avant garde jazz ever committed to vinyl with Joe Harriott. The Joe Harriott Quintet released the seminal Free Form in 1960 and Abstract in 1962. When Keane recorded the tracks on this record in January 1962 the Harriott Quintet were half way through recording Abstract.
Of course, Harriott's free form experiments were utterly original and owed little to America. However, they were also not taken up by the British jazz scene. Indeed many British jazz musicians were openly scornful and mocking of the Quintet's music.
There is none of this experimentation in Keane's playing here. Instead he supports the Pat Smythe Trio. Smythe was also a member of the Harriott Quintet. In his way he was as important to the Harriott sound as was Keane. According to Coleridge Goode it was Smythe's harmonic subtlety and range of musical knowledge that made free form music a real possibility.
Keane and Smythe both had knowledge of classical music and, perhaps not surprisingly for music that originated in one of London's most prestigious concert venues, the music they produce here is very much influenced by the mix of jazz and classical music that came to be known as the 'third stream'. I think given Keane's other appearances on experimental third stream recordings, most notably David Mack's New Directions, this is hardly surprising.
However, of all the recordings on this record the Smythe Trios are perhaps the most 'jazz'. Of the three tracks, two are from recognised jazz greats, Miles David and Max Roach, albeit in radically different forms, while the third is the standard, Ole Devil Moon.
For me these tracks are the highlight of the record. however, they are not at all the most ambitious.

Johnny Scott, in 1962, was the leader of a quintet and had been playing jazz for a number of years. He would later move into studio work for movie scores which in turn led him into cinema composing where he has scored music for movies such as The Shooting Party and Greystoke. He has also scored classical pieces, played in classical orchestras and even conducted.
His contribution to this record is a Suite in Three Movements. I can hear definite elements of cinematic music in each movement and although his music definitely has a foundation in jazz, it is obviously pulling in a completely different direction from Harriott's free form experiments.
Although the sleeve notes compare these pieces by Scott to the American third stream I would suggest that they rather represent a more British approach to the fusion of jazz and classical music. I find his flute playing and the percussion to be very evocative of Benjamin Britten.

Ray Premru's group consisted of some great British jazzmen. Kenny Clare, Bob Efford, Kenny Napper and Eddie Blair. Unfortunately their contribution is the least interesting on the record, perhaps because it is the least experimental.
Despite also leaning heavily on classical conventions it is rather stale music that never manages to lift itself above or beyond its conventions.

Finally, the record closes with some marvellous music from Alan Clare. Again owing rather a lot to classical music, in this case Debussy, Clare's music is truly sublime. I think its his playing, his tone and phrasing, that really give his contributions such depth and beauty. It is a shame he did not record more!
He is ably assisted by Lennie Bush on drums, Dave Goldberg on guitar and Bob Burns on soprano sax. Their playing is very restrained putting Clare's playing at the forefront.
Of all the music on this record, Clare's is the most difficult to pigeon-hole. Is it jazz, or classical, or something else entirely? Its certainly very beautiful and unique.

Overall, this record is not a lost masterpiece. At best if provides a snapshot of a moment in the development of British jaz as it stuggled to find its identity. If you come across it, pick it up. Its an interesting listen.

DON BURROWS PLUS SIX - ON CAMERA

For reasons that I can't begin to explain, this record hasn't been far from turntable for the last few weeks.
In case you don't know him, Don Burrows is one of the key figures in Australian jazz. If you ever come across a record from Australia that contains jazz it will also probably have Burrows playing on it!
Released in 1963, On Camera collects together some of the music Burrows and his band recorded for TV shows such as The Bryan Davies Show and This Is Jazz.
Oh, for a time when you could see and hear jazz on television. I don't know about you but round these parts the only jazz that gets shows on any of the hundreds of channels I get are concerts of sixties jazz luminaries but only recorded at the sunset of their careers, usually for some reason in the early nineties. There is definitely nothing showing young, avante garde, or interesting modern jazz. Imagine a whole programmes devoted to it! But then again in 1962 the world hadn't yet been completely changed by the arrived of the Beatles! I'm sure they didn't mean to, but their success put an end to the era when jazz could be considered pop music, much less popular music.
Anyway, I digress!
With Burrows on this record is a veritable supergroup of Australian jazz musos. Accompanying Burrows on brass is Errol Buddle on tenor, as well as oboe, bassoon and clarinet (that's him on the front cover with a bald head and 'tache). Rounding out the brass section is Johnny Bamford on trombone. Judy Bailey is on piano, as well as celeste, glockenspiel, George Golla is on guitar, John Sangster is on drums and George Thompson on bass. Each one is a name to be reckoned with in Australian jazz. 
In the early sixties all of these musicians, and many other jazz musicians, were making the lions share of their livings playing for TV, movies, and adverts. Just as in the UK and America, there was a demand for musicians who could play jazz, but who could also read music and be relied upon to turn up to a recording session at the right time and not too drunk! It was in this atmosphere that musicians such as John Sangster learnt about arranging and writing. All of the musicians on this record had long experience in this world. It may not have been very glamorous and you may not have been able to play exactly what you wanted but it paid well and was fairly solid work.
I'm sure that is why Burrows chose these six for his band. After all they would be recording music for TV shows, often broadcast live and frequently with little time to rehearse before hand.
But these were no faceless session musicians. At the same time as they may have been knuckling down to session work, in the evenings, everyone on this record, and many more musicians were jamming in the El Rocco. A Sydney nightclub in the Kings Cross district, El Rocco became in the early 60s one of the places for jazz musicians to congregate and engage in sometimes fearsome jam sessions that might last all night. Everyone apparently could have a go, but few could take the pressure. All styles were welcome from Trad Jazz (of which there seems to be a lot in Oz) to more avante garde styles influenced by what was going on in New York.
Like all such crucibles of musical invention, the El Rocco was both welcoming and off putting at the same time. However, it provided a place for musicians to push at the boundaries of jazz in a way that paying gigs never would have done.
Can you hear any of that experimentation in On Camera?
I'm not sure. Don't forget the music here was intended to be sent by the Australian Broadcasting Company into the living rooms of Australians all over the country. It wouldn't do to have anything too 'way out'. You might be pleased to find jazz on the box but you wouldn't have been able to get anything experimental, much less dissonant!
However, there is something playful and irreverent about the whole record. Perhaps its the way they deconstruct the songs they cover. The Porgy and Bess Medley, Moon River, Nutcracker Suite, Begin the Beguine all start conventionally enough. You might think you were getting an easy listening version of each one. Then, almost without you realising it, the band have headed off in their own direction and left the familiar song somewhere far behind them. What's going on, you might say, I know its supposed to be Begin the Beguine, what's happening now? And just at the point that you might wonder if they are still playing the same track, like the professionals they are, they slide back in and you can sit back in your armchair, puff your pipe and drink your tea. Phew, I thought for a terrible moment that those jazzers were up to their old tricks, and were trying to pull a fast one on me!
However, by a long way the standout track for me is the Burrow's penned The Wailing Waltz. Everyone has a crack at trying to wrestle it away from the others. From George Golla's intro to Burrow's own flute solo, Sangster's pushing drumming in the background, Bailey's strident, off-kilter piano until to winds up a slightly sweaty but very pleased with itself heap at the end its an endless enjoyable piece of music.

GLENN (GHANABABA) WARREN - RHYTHMS OF HAPPY FEELINGS

 This, unjustly neglected record, is by Glenn Ghanababa Warren. However, it has his father, Guy Warren's fingerprints all over it!
The description on the sleeve perfectly described the music within the grooves:- "Discussed in Africa ... Recorded in Europe ... Mastered in America." So we have a record with a definite African flavour, largely played by Brits and remixed with a light (and sometimes not so light) fashionable disco-influenced style. And when it works its a pure joy!
Released on Ghana's Safari Records in 1980 - what a great record label symbol! Does anyone know if they released any more records?

It seems plausible that a young man would persuade his father to adopt a more modern sound. But I can't help feel that the ever ambitious Guy would have been well aware in 1980, when this record was produced, of the successes of such African musicians as Manu Dibango, Fela Kuti and his old rival Olatunji in the US disco scene. He was certainly aware of the rock band Osibisa as the string arrangements on this record and rhythm guitar were supplied by Kiki Gyan who had played extensively with the band. Furthermore, he must also have been aware of the jazz-funk, jazz-rock movements if for no other reason than the British jazzers on the record were part of these scenes.
Foremost from the British jazz scene on this record was Ian Carr. Carr played with Guy Warren in the sixties on his own records and on Warren's Afro Jazz LP. By 1980 Carr, together with saxophonist Brian Smith and keyboard player Geoff Castle and bassist Billy Kristain had all played together in Carr's jazz-rock-funk outfit Nucleus.
The final elements in the mix are Tom McCarthy and Sharon Shapiro who produced a number of disco records in New York. I think the presence of Michael Benedictus, also as arranger, who would go on to produce Don't Make Me Wait together with Larry Levan as the Peech Boys, must also have helped give this record its dance-floor-friendly flavour.

For a Guy Warren fan such as myself one of the joys of this record is hearing three of the great man's tracks re-recorded. Monkies and Butterflies and Highlife are from Africa Speaks, America Answers (read about it here), while Happy Feeling is, perhaps his most well know track as it was covered by Bert Kaempfert.

Needless to say the playing is exemplary. There is a different feel for each track. The opener, Monkies and Butterflies is a joyous party track with the band chanting and singing over a, sometime shambolic, but always infectious rhythm. Carr provides a great solo.

Next is Eyes of a Fawn which reminds me somewhat of a slightly less tight Brotherhood of Breath - which is a compliment!

The best part of the final track on the first side, Laakpaa, is the second half which consists of nothing more than chanting, singing and basic percussion. Magnetic, hypnotic stuff.

Over on side two we get the full disco treatment. I'd love to hear this in a proper club situation - in fact I'll have to play it sometime! It just builds and builds without a let up as strings, female vocals and even some disco synth stabs are added. Its definitely the most 'modern' track on the LP.

After such a dancefloor killer the last two tracks, both covers of earlier Guy Warren tracks seem somewhat subdued. However, after you have calmed down from Love of Rhythm, both Happy Feeling and High Life have much to offer.

I urge you to track down a copy of this fine record. Although its not super rare, I've seen it in some shockingly bad conditions, so spend a bit of time and track down a decent copy! Good luck

GUY WARREN - AFRICA SPEAKS, AMERICA ANSWERS!

Africa Speaks, America Listens is a truly remarkable record. Remarkable not only for its musical content, an as-yet-unheard-in-the-US-fusion of West African highlife and jazz, but remarkable also for its assertion of a cultural equality between the American and the African continents. Indeed, from the title you might be forgiven for thinking that America is the passive member of the partnership. Furthermore, unlike many of Warren's later solo recordings the other musicians on the record were, with two notable exceptions, white Americans. Although this is Warren's conversation with America, I am afraid to say that my copy is a UK Brunswick copy. The cover on the US album shows Warren playing against an almost Constructivist background and is much cooler that then UK version. There's also an Australian version with its own sleeve but I haven't seen one.
Guy Warren arrived in the US in 1954 and having played in London with Kenny Graham's Afro-Cubists (if anyone has any recordings of Warren with the band let me know!) and in Ghana with ET Mensah, he quickly found gigs, albeit not immediately very lucrative.
Through a contact at Down Beat magazine he met Gene Esposito who hired him to join his Latin Jazz band, which was composed entirely of Italian and Jewish musicians. He also met Red Saunders, again through connections. Saunders was a veteran drummer who had played with Albert Ammons and Joe Williams. Through Saunders, Warren secured a recording date at Decca. Saunders would play on the record but only minimally, despite receiving top billing and a hefty slice of the royalties.
It may, on paper, have sounded like an unpromising combination but Warren was able to marshall his forces and pull of a coup.
As I've mentioned in reviews of Warren's later LPs, he was never interested in producing jazz with an African flavour but was rather determined to produce a hybrid of the jazz played in America and the jazz played in Africa. The music on this record, considering it was his first LP as leader, is an amazing mix of highlife, traditional African music and American jazz. That the mix not only works but that he manages to get the right combination of all the differing elements (and managed to get his diverse band to play at the top of their game) is, I believe a tribute to his advanced vision and musicianship.
The record opens with Guy and band members chanting - presumably Africa speaking! Warren then plays the bamboo drums, the first example of a wide variety of African percussion instruments used throughout the album. Where Warren's playing and overall musical vision differs from those of percussionists such as Olatunji is that he employs traditional instruments in the service of modern music rather than jazzed up versions of African songs. Just as the listener thinks the track is going nowhere it takes a sudden swerve (or should I say fade out) into a more forceful and muscular direction. It is almost as though, having started to speak softly and attractively, Africa is now speaking directly and demanding to be heard as an equal. It is a great introduction.

Ode to a Stream, like the later My Minuet, seems to me to owe something to the European classical tradition, in this case to the impressionist composers. Johnny Frigo plays the violin solo. Frigo would go on to record some interesting but scarce records for modern dance. Maybe we'll get to this one day!

Duet sees Warren playing with Red Saunders. I must admit that while it is interesting, Saunders is just too conventional against Warrens imaginative percussive onslaught. Not I suspect Saunders' fault but Warren is just better!

Eyi Wala Don (My Thanks to God) has some great piano-work from Gene Esposito while Warren plays the drums. Can someone tell me what he is saying?

Monkies and Butterflies on one of my favourite tracks on the record and in fact one of my overall favourite of all Warren's songs. The band really comes together there, particularly Esposito and Johnny Lamonica on trumpet.With the female vocals in the background this is such a happy track.

The first side closes with J.A.I.S.I (Jazz as I see It). While very enjoyable, compared to the previous track, it just seems too conventional to my ears, although the conga and bass interplay and solos are a highlight.
Side two kicks off with Invocation of the Horned Viper. As ever Warren's playing is terrific. I can't help feel, however, that overall it is a little too 'exotica'. What do you think?

Chant continues the adoption of traditional music, in this case, a drum ritual to accompany a dead body being carried to a cemetery. Just as it is about the go the way of its predecessor, the piano and sax come in to add a jazz element.

My Minuet is a very strange song indeed. I would love to know more about it. The sleeve notes very unhelpfully just say that it is "almost 18th Century Drawing Room style". What were Warren's influences to create such a song?

The Highlife is, to my ears, surprisingly flat when you consider that Warren was a key part of highlife music in Ghana. I think the most off-putting aspect of it are the lyrics which are incredibly trite.
I like the Eyes of the Fawn. The horn section really seem to be comfortable with it, perhaps because it allows them space to improvise over the top of Warren's playing. For some reason it makes me think of some of the experiments of Kenny Graham in the UK!

Finally FE-ED-TO-NE closes the record with a bang. What a great track! It perfectly pulls together the various elements of jazz from both continents into a perfect blend that allows both to come out. The beginning of Warren's singing and playing, gives way to Esposito's driving piano solo. He is joined by the horn section which pulls the track in a more 'American', West Coast-cool direction. The Warren comes back in to finish the track. Africa and America are in conversation but Africa has the last word. 

SATHIMA BEA BENJAMIN - SINGS ELLINGTON

When Bea Benjamin (or Sathima as she was nicknamed by Johnny Dyani) and Dollar Brand (who would change his name to Abdullah Ibrahim when he changed his faith) arrived in Zurich as self imposed exiles from apartheid their prospects cannot have been good. They knew few people, didn't speak French or German, and had little money.
That would all change when Benjamin managed to persuade their hero Duke Ellington to come and listen to them perform after a concert he was giving in the city. Ellington, recently given an A&R role at Reprise by its owner Frank Sinatra, loved what he heard of the pianist and the singer. He booked both of them into a recording session in Paris a few days later and out of this came Brand's Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio. However, the session also produced about twelve tracks which highlighted Benjamin's singing. For reasons that are not clear these were not released at the time and only saw the light of day in 1997 because an engineer kept a copy of the tapes.
Both Benjamin and Brand had grown up loving the music of Ellington and it seemed a natural move for them to record his songs. However, Benjamin continued to return his music. She recorded Prelude to a Kiss with Brand in 1969, sang with Ellington at a Jazz Vespers service in New York in 1972, in 1976 staged a concert tribute to Ellington in Harlem and in 1979 she recorded this record.
Sathima's musical development was marked by the influence of American jazz musicians, including Ellington as well as singers such as Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and more 'pop' singers such as Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. She has also spoken of the influence of the church on her singing as well as of South African songs, both traditional and modern. So, like most South African jazz musicians, her musical style was born from a mix of different and competing influences which came together to produce something unique.
There is nothing on this record that sounds as though it could only have come from Africa. However, Benjamin's take on these tracks is truly her own and, whether it is the glacial tempos, the sparse accompaniment or her precise and subtle singing style, she sounds as though she could not be an American singer much less a European one.
Benjamin is sympathetically backed by Americans Onaje Allan Gumbs on piano, Vishnu Woods on bass, John Betsch on drums and Claude Latief on congas.
My favourite track on the album is Benjamin's take on Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life. She really seems to encapsulate the world weary, dissipated, disappointed but still resilient essence of Strayhorn's lyrics. I can believe that she really has been through the 'too many through the day, twelve o'cocktail.' and that she will 'rot with the rest of those whose lives are lonely too'. Gumbs' is terrific and Betsch provides just enough brushing on the drums. It is truly moving and unique take on a classic song.

LUBAT, LOUISS, ENGEL GROUP - LIVE AT MONTREAUX 72

A while ago I wrote about Bernard Lubat and His Mad Ducks (read about it here).
In 1972 the band got back together, this time dropping the Mad Ducks name, and instead following a trend in rock groups (borrowed from jazz groups) of using their own names.
Still on the chic Les Disques de Pierre Cardin label, they were recorded in action at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. The '72 jazz festival also produced live recordings from label-mates Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine and Jean-Luc Ponty (neither of which have come my way yet but I'm sure they will!).
It like the fact that session-kings and studio-masters like Lubat and Louiss get the chance to play in front of people and at such a prestigious event as Montreaux. I also like the fact that this record consists of material that doesn't appear elsewhere - maybe even written with the event in mind!
And what a mix of music it is!
Unlike the Mad Ducks record, Live at Montreaux seems to stretch out and explore some pretty wild and frankly psychedelic places. Whereas the Mad Ducks was a fun, well dress mod, kind of a record this one really lets its hair down and goes on a trip!
Claude Engel's playing is also much more prominent and he bring a definite rock element to the proceedings. Perhaps not surprising for one of the founder members of prog group Magma, Engel's playing is technically brilliant and drenched in acid. Mindblowing stuff! His playing has the same effect as John McLaughlin's does in Miles Davis' group of about the same time. Its rock, its psychedelic, its 'out-there' and it pushes his band mates into some interesting and 'un-jazz-like' territory.
Jazz-veteran Eddy Louiss, however, is the jazz-foil to Engel's rocking. Playing fender and electric organ, his playing is more 'straight' jazz around which Engel seems to jump and dive.
Lubat's playing is also out of the top drawer. Never predictable, never repetitive (which for a drummer is really saying something) he isn't laying down the rhythm, he's a front-line contributor up there with Tony Williams.
Finally, Marc Berteaux provides the funk with his electric bass.
All of these elements come together on the opening track Les Adventures de Pinpin au Togo (Emmanuel Pinpin Sciot being their producer as well as the designer of the collage on the Mad Duck's album).
If you don't like jazz-rock or fusion then this track isn't for you!
What  I like best about it is that, while you can hear the fantastic musicianship of the people involved, it never becomes self indulgent like much fusion.
Live in a Magic Forest changes the tone from frantic and furious to calm and relaxed. Gently weaving the organ is relaxing, leading the listener further and further into the Magic Forest, accompanied by percussion and eventually joined by Engel's guitar and the music becomes more forceful and strident and suddenly the Forest is no long calm but buffeted by musical winds. Eventually, Engel takes off and we leave the jazz behind and move into a very prog world.
Over on side two we kick off with 5th of July, Dulong Street. A driving funky monster of a track this is, for me, the highlight of the record and the reason to track it down. Tight and funky bass, wild drumming, great organ work and, when he comes in blistering guitar, this is incredible stuff. I can only imagine what the audience where doing while this track was being played - and it wasn't sitting down! Engel's solo perfectly complements and doesn't overwhelm his band mates. It only lasts for 6 minutes and 20 seconds but it feels a lot longer.Terrific stuff!

The record concludes with Mickey Schroeder's Dream, which shifts gears from dancing through Dulong Street, to drifting away on a narcotic haze. Written by Lubat I wonder if it is him on the electric piano that opens the track. In a similar way to Live in a Magic Forest, this is swirls and eddies around your head. Gradually the drifting organ meets some phased percussion (could this really have been done live in 1972?) adding a further layer of psychedelia. Disembodied singing kicks off some slightly 'eastern' sounding percussion (still phased and treated) and we feel we are falling into a drugged up dream-like state.

That's enough for now. I'm off to find more Lubat stuff!

SOLOMON ILORI - AFRICAN HIGH LIFE

I don't really know very much about Solomon Gbadegesin Ilori and I would like to know more.
Ilori was born in Nigeria and, according to the sleeve notes of this, his only record as a leader, he had only been in the US for five years at the time of its recording. African High Life was recorded in 1963, a year after Art Blakey's African Beat on which Ilori also played. Read about it here.
In some ways this is a continuation of Blakey's African Beat as many of the same people played on both records. Ilori, Chief Bey, Robert Crowder, Montego Joe, Garvin Masseaux and Ahmed Abdul-Malik all appear on both sessions. They are joined by Josiah Ilori on sakara drums and cow bell (a brother perhaps?), Jay Berliner on guitar and Hosea Taylor on sax and flute.Taylor had previously played with Olatunji and also played on two unreleased at the time cuts on Freddie Hubbard's Blue Spirits. Hubbard of course played in Blakey's Jazz Messengers!
I don't know as much about Taylor as I would like to but his playing on this record is exemplary.
African High Life falls between the work of Guy Warren on one hand and Olatunji on the other. Neither as complete a fusion of American jazz and African highlife nor as obviously indebted to 'traditional' African music, Ilori manages to be both inventive and surprising. As the linear notes comment, "his use of African and European musical instruments on this album and the achievement of a perfect balance between them also point to his success in fusing together two diverse cultural elements without doing any professional injustice to either of them." The sleeve notes are penned by Oladejo Okediji, who I assume is the Nigerian writer. If so then these are the first sleeve notes on a US record by an African musician that I have read that are written by someone who may have been able to understand the music from its African source and not just as a new sound on American shores. Indeed Okediji's comments praise Ilori for attempting to correct some fundamental misconceptions about African music as being about "unmeasured and raw shouting", while "African dancers jump aimlessly into the air with a kind of martial impulse."
As the sleeve note make clear African High Life is not a percussion record of the likes of Chiano but an attempt to explore a wide range of African music and instruments. Of course, there are drums and in some cases they are prominent but Ilori also uses other 'African' instruments such as the pennywhistle (read about South African pennywhistle kwela here) and the guitar (read about the guitar and the Heshoo Beshoo Group here) to create music of depth and interest.
The opening track Tolani (African Love Song) is also the most drum focused track. It starts with some incredible drumming before the rest of the band join in. Listen out for Taylor's sax towards the end - New York meets Lagos if ever I've heard it!

Next is Ise Owula (God's Work is Indestructible). Berliner's guitar and Taylor's flute interplay are just beautiful and Ilori's sensitive drum work is perfect. His deep voice never fails to move me on this one!

The first side closes with Follow Me to Africa,which again, is a melodic and beautiful song. It opens with some fine pennywhistle playing from, I think, Ilori. Abdul Malik's bass also stands out for me. Happy stuff.

Side two kicks off with Yaba E (Farewell) which is pure highlife. It starts with a refrain from an instrument that sounds like a xylophone before breaking into an infectious dance groove.

The next track, Jojolo (Look at this Beautiful Girl), is another highlife track. With lovely call and response singing, Taylor's sax is once more to the front. The percussion is particularly good.

 
The record finishes with Aiye Le (The Troubled World) which, at the beginning, is almost a duet between Ilori's voice and Berliner's guitar - although, inevitably, there is some inventive percussion work supporting them. Then it sounds as though the rest of the band join in and everyone sings this beautiful song together.

The English 'translations' reveal that Ilori was a spiritually minded person for whom God and life were linked and worthy of respect.

In many ways this is a surprising record to come out on Blue Note, although it seems to have been an extension of Blakey's interest in African music.

I would very much like to know more about this fascinating musician. Did he stay in the US or return to Nigeria? Did he make any more records. There is a fairly recent release of tracks from the African Highlife sessions which I haven't heard. Is there any more? Any information will be very gratefully received.

OLATUNJI- ZUNGO!

If Guy Warren's musical journey was an attempt to introduce African drumming to jazz then one might think that Olatunji succeeded in the attempt. However, rather than fuse jazz and African drums, Olatunji served up a watered down version of traditional Nigerian songs that captivated record buyers and jazz musicians alike.
Babatunde Olatunji was originally from Nigeria, first came to the US to study politics at Morehouse University and only started playing drums when he arrived in the US.
Due to a combination of luck and and good connections Olatunji became known in New York jazz circles as the go-to-guy for African drumming He appears on a number of jazz records of the early 60's appearing on Randy Weston's Uhuru African, Cannonball Adderley's African Waltz, Herbie Mann's Afro-Jazz Sextet and Max Roach's We Insist.
His Drums of Passion LP became a sensation, selling thousands of copies in the US. Unlike Warren and other African drummers such as Solomon Ilori, Olatunji's music was more 'traditional'. Using songs from his homeland and some of his own compositions (most notably Gin-Go Lo-Ba which would go on to become Jingo in the hands of Santana) Drums of Passion came off as a 'genuine' slice of Africa.
It was however, nothing of the sort. Most of the musicians on it were African Americans perhaps most notably drummers and percussionists James 'Chief' Bey (who played with Guy Warren on Themes For African Drums - read about it here), Thomas Taiwo Duvall and Montego Joe (read about his solo records here) and the singers were also from America.
Olatunji was not formerly trained as a drummer and his three co-drummers, by some accounts, provided most of the music and helped him overcome his initial limitations. Indeed in the introduction to his autobiography it is even admitted. However, Olatunji not only got top billing, the help he received remained virtually unknown.
All three percussionists appear on Zungo which was released in 1961, together with Yusef Lateef on winds, Clark Terry on trumpet, George Duvivier on bass, and Ray Barretto on conga and timbalis. Interestingly Lateef, Montego Joe and Chief Bey would go on to play on Blakey's African Beat (read about it here) in 1962, while the previous year, 1960, saw Lateef, Duvivier and Olatunji play on Randy Weston's Uhuru Africa. The 'Africa' link surely doesn't need to be pointed out!
Why was he so popular both with the jazz world and with record buyers if his playing was questionable and his music lacking in authenticity? Part of the answer lies in Lateef's recollections of playing with him. In his autobiography Lateef writes: "Later in 1960, I moved from Mingus to a group led by Babatunde Olatunji, the Nigerian percussionist. Playing with Babatunde was an interesting experience, mostly because for the first time I had to perform without a pianist or bassist in the group. It provided me with a lot of harmonic space and freedom. Olatunji's music also provided a wider appreciation for world music. To this extent he was a pioneer of what is termed today 'world music'."
For Lateef, Olatunji represented an opportunity to play with an authentic African drummer and to learn about African drumming so as to incorporate it into jazz. The same was true of John Coltrane, who became friends with Olatunji and he and Lateef agreed to help him financially with his Center of African Culture. Indeed the last concert that Coltrane played, and the last recording of him playing, was at a benefit for Olatunji's Center. Coltrane was always interested in rhythm and drummers and his love of playing with Elvin Jones because of his fierce drumming style is well documented. Coltrane also said in interviews that he intended to record with Olatunji or at least learn about 'African' drumming and music from him.
Even Nina Simone recorded Zungo, from this album, on her At the Village Gate LP. And Jack Kerouac, according to the sleeve note, loved Olatunji. Guy Warren must have been very put out by the song Jolly Mensah. After all he had actually played with the highlife king!
So, Olatunji represented a potential new musical direction but also a physcial manifestation of pride in Africa and, for African American, African culture. At a time when Africa was coming out of the oppressive period of empire and was yet to succumb to other forms of economic colonialism, the continent could become a source of pride for African Americans. Meanwhile, 1960 also saw the sit in protests in the US (shown in graphic form on the cover of Max Roach's We Insist), while 1961 and 1962 saw more sit ins, freedom rides and boycotts across the Southern states of the US.
However, despite his success both commercially and professionally I find Olatunji's music to be rather flat. It often lacks the rhythmic intricacies of other percussion records, notably by Guy Warren and Solomon Ilori. Both these musicians also strove, and sometime wonderfully succeeded to fuse Western jazz and African 'traditional' music, as well as the already existing fusion that was highlife. Lateef and Coltrane may have been fascinated by Olatunji's music, and I suspect that this was because he was perceived as authentic. They wanted something that sounded 'African' rather than sounding too 'Western'. Through wanting to create a fusion of their music with 'authentic African' music, ironically, American jazz musicians and record buyers ignored the music that already existed that was already a fusion of the two - highlife.

If music be the food of love * - Cleopatra Goes Jazz

1963 was the year of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Cleopatra. The epic movie won four Oscars, not however, for the soundtrack which, although nominated lost out to the music for Tom Jones - remember that one (nor me)?
But nothing could stop the juggernaut of Cleopatra and Alex North's music found itself covered by such easy listening stalwarts as Al Caiola, Ferrante and Teicher and Dick Hayman.North had already scored the  sword and sand epic Spartacus and Yusef Lateef had taken the Love Theme and made it an achingly beautiful jazz classic. Read about it here
Not only did Burton and Taylor sizzle on screen, their real life romance obvious to the millions who saw them, but the story of love against the odds, of passion and, lets face it, exotic sexual lust, was irresistible.
Who couldn't fall for it? Who could jump on the bandwagon?
In jazz, as in all other genres of music, a movement cannot be allowed to pass by in case it can bring you to the attention of more people. Hence the fad for producing records of jazzed up Broadway musicals, or doing James Bond knock-offs and exotica cross-overs. If millions liked the movie, maybe they'll buy a jazz records related to it?
Three Cleopatra themed jazz records made it into the shops and each would take a slightly different approach to turning the epic movie into a piece of jazz history.

Cleopatra represented something more than a sexy screen idol. She was exotic and sensual but not just in the way of any number of record covers that showed exotic ladies in states of undress, or North African belly dancers and concubines, or wild Cuban or Haitian female dancers. Cleopatra was a world famous beauty as well as a Queen. She was a perfect combination of beauty and brains - but because she was from Egypt and an historical figure she could be depicted wearing titillating clothes!
And although she was played by the very British Elizabeth Taylor, the real Cleopatra was, of course from Egypt. In 1963 there was an ever growing awareness amongst black Americans that the history of the world was not necessarily the same as the history of white Europeans. Egypt was part of the African continent and therefore part of the original homeland of many who were starting to question their white-American-determined roots and heritage. Of course none of this is visible in the movie, nor in the music. However, it is worth noting Sun Ra's Egyptian obsession, Wayne Shorter's Black Nile and Jackie McLean's On the Nile as instances of the jazz world taking notice of Egypt.
The first to give it a go was Paul Gonsalves.

Gonsalves for some reason didn't take full advantage of the opportunity to have a picture of Liz Taylor on the front of his record and instead opted for a picture of himself in from of a stone, carved coffin. No accounting for taste!
A very solid effort on Impulse, Cleopatra, Feelin Jazzy sees the ex-Ellingtonian teamed up with a crack group consisting of Hank Jones, Dick Hyman, George Duvivier, Kenny Burrell and Roy Haynes. Even I could make a great record with these guys helping! However, despite the all star cast its the least adventurous of the three records.
Gonsalves acquits himself magnificently throughout, his tone and phrasing are impeccable. They cover two tracks from the original soundtrack, Caesar and Cleopatra Theme and Anthony and Cleopatra Theme. After that they are free to let rip.
However, although the original compositions (and Ellington's Action in Alexandria) are all given titles that relate to the movie - Blues for Liz, Cleo's Blues, Cleo's Asp and Cleopatra's Lament, the music itself has no hint of Egypt, Africa, exotica or anything other than an American swinging hard bop. Its all very nice but not great. There is little that is either exotic, or indeed particularly spectacular about Cleopatra Feelin Jazzy. It a good sold listen but once the needle leaves the record the music quickly fades.

Next up is another Paul - Paul Horn and he is fielding a more West Coast team than Gonsalves. This Paul called up some mates, Emil Richards, Larry Bunker who would later play with him on his Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts (read about it here) as well as some other experienced studio musicians such as Brit expat, Victor Feldman, Chuck Israels and Colin Bailey.
They also used this opportunity to have a very suggestive picture of Liz Taylor on the cover. As you can see she fixes you with a direct stare before your eyes are dragged down over the amazing necklace and shimmering gown.
Horn and co did not bring any original material to this record but their interpretations of Alex North's music is so original that I don't think that matters.
Horn's soaring flute work is given an even more exotic backdrop by Richards' vibes and Bunker's percussion work and although it is uncredited Horn also plays the melodia on some tracks. Taken together this makes this a very enjoyable and satisfying record. It mixes just the right amounts of exotica and jazz to make it interesting throughout. Compared to the massive orchestration of the original, Horn's record sound refreshingly clear and fresh.
There is nothing remotely North African or indeed Egyptian or even Arabian about this music. It owes its exotic nature as much to the movie's depiction of Cleopatra as to any knowledge of music beyond the borders of the United States.
Having said all of that, this is one of my favourite Horn records and although it takes Alex North's music as its starting point it is, in my view, has very much its own character. Of course, Horn and Richards would go on to make more 'authentic' records later in the decade.

So, finally, on to the wild card in the pack.. What is this all about?
The Music of Cleopatra on the Nile was released on the small Mount Vernon Music label based in New York.
There is exactly no information on either the sleeve or the label as to who was behind this record. No musicians listed, no producer credited, no writer acknowledged. It seems to have come out of nowhere.
And the music, I hear you ask? Well the it is an amazing amalgam of jazz, of what to my ears sounds like Eastern European clarinet - almost klezmer in places, an instrument that sound like an oud (read about Ahmed Abdul Malik and his fusion of oud and jazz here), and some great percussion of bells, gongs and hand drums. It sounds like music from North Africa rather than music from America - or more precisely it sounds like music played by musicians who were familiar with music outside of jazz but familiar with jazz as well. Particular highlights for me are Passionate and Exotica, both of which provide a great danceable mix of styles. Dance of the Perfumed Veils is strangely hypnotic and alluring.
Who made this music? There is some speculation on the web that Sun Ra had a hand in it. I'm afraid that I just can't hear that. I know he made the Batman and Robin record but this just doesn't sound like anything by Sun Ra I've ever heard.
I like the fact that we may never know who was behind this. It just means that there is nothing to distract you from the music. Unless its the busty drawing of our Liz on the front cover!
Track this one down. Its an obscure joy.

Or click here to go to the whole album


* Yes I know this is from Twelth Night - so sue me!