My desk piles up with reissues, retrospectives, compilations and greatest-hits sets, some of them drizzled with oh-so-welcome previously unreleased material. I'm not complaining; most of the time I request them from the labels. But I can't seem to squeeze enough reviews of these re-releases into our regular Spins page, so I'm rolling out a semi-regular column devoted to music of the past. It'll cover the stylistic gamut. Let's inaugurate the thing with some …
Difficult Music. As companion pieces to the various-artists boxed set The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records, Verve has released single-disc overviews, all titled The Impulse Story, by several of the label's top artists, including the prime troika of post-Coltrane avant-garde jazz: Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders. The artistry of these saxophonists establishes without question that '60s free jazz was not just a bunch of crazy, pissed-off brothers blowing random shit, but had distinct stylistic voices. It does not take a trained ear to differentiate Sanders, Ayler and Shepp.
Sanders, the one most closely associated with Trane, was bent on evoking the lofty spirituality in his mentor's music, but in an even more sprawling fashion. His most famous piece, included here, is "The Creator Has a Master Plan," a 33-minute mind-fuck built around drones and chants, peppered with Sanders' razor sax solos. After a smoldering intro, the tune appropriates the bass vamp from the first part of Coltrane's A Love Supreme, and then unspools from there, gradually finding its way to the warbly singing of Leon Thomas and a string of solos and group improv. This CD includes only four tracks, and each one features the same sort of audience-be-damned excess and unhurried exploration. While the music can certainly become tedious, much of it is imbued with a deep beauty.
While much of post-Coltrane spiritualism was derived from the East, Albert Ayler's was more inspired by black gospel. The most primordial of the three saxophonist/composers, his songs also reflected a fundamental African-ness, his tunes imbued with call-and-response and simple nursery-rhyme or march-like melodies that reached hypnotic heights. An artist who skipped the post-bop basics, his music came from a very personal, instinctive space. Ayler's sax tone was a marvel, a brawny, raspy moan that exuded pain and probing; his phrasing blended long notes with staccato bursts and plenty of squeak and squawk.
By 1968's New Grass, Ayler had incorporated electric instruments, and tried to graft funk and soul into his sound without making the requisite pop compromises. The results are by and large fascinating but clumsy. "Music is the Healing Force of the Universe" (1969), included here, is a colossal mess. Ayler died of an apparent suicide in 1970.
While most '60s free jazz had a spiritual element, it was also associated with the rising Black Nationalist movement. Shepp was the most political of the triumvirate. He was also the most accomplished saxophonist and arranger, and for listener purposes, the most accessible. While Shepp reveled in dissonance like his peers, his music possessed more order and conventional melody. His tunes generally benefited from concrete grooves, be it swing ("Los Olvidados"), slow blues shuffles (Damn if I Know"), James Brown funk ("Mama Too Tight") or even samba (a seditious "The Girl From Ipanema"). His re-imagining of the Coltrane ballad "Naima," which opens this set, is a genuinely inspired tribute. Shepp's 1972 song "Attica Blues," a whack slice of symphonic soul, is the most successful crossover effort heard in these three discs.
If you haven't been exposed to outré jazz and want to check it out, Shepp is the best of the three to begin with. Better yet, try A Love Supreme first, kind of as a gateway drug.
Blue-Eyed Soul Siren. Dusty Springfield was the lead chick in the British Invasion of the mid-'60s. Her infectious "I Only Want to Be with You" reached No. 12 on the American charts in January '64. As heard on the double-disc Gold (Hip-O/Mercury), Dusty had a soulful ache in her voice that created a beguiling tension with the innocence of her early material. Some of her songs were so hopelessly sexist as to be laughable. "Wishing and Hoping" counsels complete submission to the guy of your dreams (including misguided sexual capitulation: "Just do it, and after you do, you will be his"). Early on, many of Dusty's hits aped the Spector girl-group style (wall of sound and all), but as the decade progressed, her work became more sophisticated. You might say that 1966's luminous "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" brought the real woman out in her. Bacharach/David's "The Look of Love" further raised the stakes. In '68, she took a soulful turn with her classic Dusty in Memphis album, of which four songs are included in this comp ("Son of a Preacher Man" among them). Dusty died from breast cancer in '99, just a few days before being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She left behind a slew of heartfelt songs, most of which could make you feel good and little sad at the same time.
Rare Groove. The Lost Soul Man (Aim International) is an apt name for a two-disc compilation by Southern soul singer Geater Davis, who died in 1984 having only reached the lower rungs of the R&B charts. Davis specialized in rough-hewn, gospel-hued blues and deep soul, punched up with horns and gritty rhythm-section work. He was a raspy belter, with a simmering sexuality coursing through all of his vocals. These 25 selections capture his best '70s work, released on an Australian label. (www.aiminternational.com)
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2006.