The 1984 double live album Zurich by the ultimate power trio, Borbetomagus (from left in photo above, saxophonists Don Dietrich and Jim Sauter and guitarist Donald Miller) has finally been reissued on CD via their own Agaric label. (Buy it from Amoeba.)
When I profiled the guys for Signal to Noise a couple of years ago, I wrote this about the album, which documents a single astonishing gig:
The Sauter/Dietrich duo album Bells Together aside, it’s as close as you can come to something you could label “Borbetomagus Unplugged.” The two saxophones are heard almost without effects pedals, which allows Sauter and Dietrich to demonstrate their astonishing, symbiotic yet thoroughly individualistic techniques. There’s a passage about three minutes into “Ohne Fleisch Loaf,” the second track on Side Two of the double LP, that recalls the keening opening passage of John Coltrane’s “The Father & The Son & The Holy Ghost,” the piece that opens the Meditations album, where Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders are sort of simultaneously going at each other and working in tandem. It’s quite beautiful. But on “Loaf” there’s also Donald Miller grinding and roaring behind the two men and eventually, in the piece’s final seconds, abandoning his instrument entirely, leaving it to feed back in a low-frequency (but very loud) crunching growl.
There are a lot of moments of raw beauty like that on Zurich. “Ms. Fisch Brotchen” finds one hornman or the other creating sounds like a didjeridoo as the other sputters and slaps the keys in an almost Evan Parker-like manner, while Miller does his best to yank the strings entirely free from his guitar. Another interesting track on the disc is “Fried Tampons,” which finds the Donalds—Dietrich and Miller—switching instruments. Dietrich takes up the guitar, while Miller plays alto sax, and the difference in approach isn’t honestly all that discernible, particularly when Dietrich just lets the instrument issue another long stretch of staticky, crunching feedback and distortion without releasing the chopping, blender-eating-bone “chords” that are Miller’s specialty.
Recorded live in the titular city in 1984, Zurich is much closer to free jazz in the classic, recognizable sense than later eruptions like 1993’s Experience The Magic or Songs Our Mother Taught Us (recorded 1999, released 2005). Again, there’s a lot of separation in the mix, and the saxophones aren’t slathered in distortion or electronic processing the way they would be a year or two down the road. And yet, even if you’ve heard Sauter’s work with Rudolph Grey’s Blue Humans or Dietrich’s work with the New Monuments, it’s extremely difficult to tell which man is making which noise. It’s not like listening to John Coltrane’s Live in Japan and knowing exactly which stream of notes is coming from his horn and which is coming from Pharoah Sanders’s. After playing together since grade school, developing their individual techniques side by side in near-total isolation from other out-jazz musicians, like two Kaspar Hausers, they’re almost a two-headed, four-handed organism.
After the jump, a short interview with all three members about the album and that era of Borbetomagus.
We’re heading into the home stretch with our countdown of the 50 Greatest Saxophonists…EVER!!! Here are #s 20-11, followed by a bonus list: Rudresh Mahanthappa picks his 5 favorite saxophonists!
20. PHAROAH SANDERS. Pharoah Sanders went from being one of the screamingest of the 1960s screamers (particularly when he was a member of John Coltrane’s final band in 1966 and 1967) to a more subtle, but still forceful, player in the early 1970s, as his large bands began to blend open-ended modal vamping with pan-African percussion and Indian drones, creating a globe-spanning spiritual clatter and roar that’s still some of the most unique and hypnotically fascinating “jazz” ever made. He got a little lost in the latter half of the decade, but never truly lost the fire, and when put into an interesting context, like his mid ’90s Bill Laswell-produced collaboration with North African Gnawa musician Maleem Mahmoud Ghania, The Trance of Seven Colors, can still blow the walls down. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Live at the East and Village of the Pharaohs, neither among his best-known Impulse! records, but each containing some of his most emotionally potent playing.
19. JOHN ZORN. Instantly recognizable, John Zorn is not only a fiercely talented alto saxophonist capable of making the horn produce just about any sound he likes, at any tempo of his choosing; he’s also a skilled composer who can pastiche and collage his way from conceptual japery to genuine beauty. Marrying Ornette Coleman to hardcore punk (and not just on the album where he did exactly that, 1988′s Spy Vs. Spy), his language of squawks, screams and ultra-fleet bebop phrases is entirely his own, unmistakable and unforgettable. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: The Zorn discography is vast and sprawling, but he’s best heard in the context of some of his long-running bands, so: Naked City’s Complete Studio Recordings; Pain Killer’s Collected Works; Masada’s Vol. 1.
18. CHARLIE ROUSE. Best known for his decade-plus partnership with Thelonious Monk, particularly during the pianist’s 1960s tenure on Columbia Records, Rouse also worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine and Duke Ellington, but he made a few albums of his own as well. His big tone and fluid yet forceful lines made his playing instantly recognizable, and an ideal foil for Monk’s jagged and thumping approach to melody and rhythm; he slips phrases around the corners, ducking in and out of the band as it lurches forward, like a child running through a parade. At the same time, his voice on the horn is never tentative, and always strong, without ever tipping over into bar-walking bluster. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Takin’ Care of Business, his debut under his own name, released on Jazzland in 1960 and pairing him with trumpeter Blue Mitchell and a rhythm section of pianist Walter Bishop, bassist Earl May and drummer Art Taylor.
17. ERIC DOLPHY. One of the very first jazzmen to veer sharply away from standard forms and into the uncharted territory of free play, Dolphy may have one of the most distinctive sounds of any avant-garde sax man, and was a divisive figure almost immediately. Before a far too early death overseas, Dolphy left behind a handful of fascinating recordings under his own name and multiple brilliant collaborations with John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, using his instrument to redefine space and time in a musical sense, inject atonal and modal developments in concert music into a jazz framework, and make the saxophone into an entire army of sounds and not just a single rank-and-file soldier. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Out to Lunch is Dolphy’s finest recording, and unfortunately, his last. Its alarming leaps, squawks, dances and flows give an indication of just how amazing his music might have become had he continued in that direction.
16. MARION BROWN. This Georgia-born alto saxophonist made his recorded debut on John Coltrane’s Ascension, and worked with many other key figures of the ’60s avant-garde, including Bill Dixon and Anthony Braxton. His music delved deep into the roots of jazz and precursor forms, from blues to the rawest sort of back-country folk as well as African and Caribbean rhythms, and he could veer wildly from far-out blowing to tender ballad murmurs. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Geechee Recollections and Sweet Earth Flying, recently reissued as a single disc. Folk meets poetry meets free jazz in a pastoral dream world.
15. JOSEPH JARMAN/ROSCOE MITCHELL. While each of these two men has recorded impressively and at length as a leader, they’re best heard as part of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the collective that bridged gaps between all eras of jazz, from New Orleans polyphony to free skronk, and funk, soul, pure unfettered improvisation and pretty much anything and everything else you could ever file under “black music.” Mitchell’s dry, intellectual rigor (occasionally leavened with a weird, almost alien sense of humor) was perfectly paired with Jarman’s Buddhist openness to any sound. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Les Stances A Sophie, a movie soundtrack that’s one of the Art Ensemble’s funkiest, rockingest, and most experimental albums, all at once.
14. COLEMAN HAWKINS. What Louis Armstrong did for the trumpet, Coleman Hawkins did for the tenor saxophone. He was there at the beginning (1924-25), setting the rules and cutting records that would influence generations after him. His harmonically complex, hard sound was basically the sound of the swing era, and even when bop took over, he became an important bandleader, hiring young players like Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Max Roach as sidemen in the 1940s. He’s also credited with the first unaccompanied sax solo, on “Picasso,” from 1948. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: The Essential Sides 1929-1939, a four-CD box including over 100 tracks; despite the earliness of these recordings, Hawkins’ style was already quite fully formed.
13. FRED ANDERSON. A testimony to the power of localism and perseverance, Anderson’s instantly recognizable tenor style wasn’t his sole contribution to jazz; from the 1970s to the 2000s, he ran the Velvet Lounge, a club in his native Chicago that hosted and husbanded the city’s avant-garde scene. His decades-long relationship with drummer Hamid Drake birthed some of the most swinging, bluesy free jazz albums in American history. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: 2 Days in April, a double-disc set documenting the first gigs by a group featuring Anderson, fellow saxophonist Kidd Jordan, bassist William Parker, and Drake.
12. WAYNE SHORTER. Shorter’s career, spanning seven decades, may be the most diverse in jazz outside of his former boss Miles Davis, bridging hard and post-bop into modal, progressive, pop and fusion, and he left a mark in every style. Primarily known today as a skillful and thoughtful composer, he’s also an excellent player, with sneaky, insinuating runs that keep his songs moving. The mere fact that he’s so adept at translating his own material to performance is a testament to his ability—nobody plays Wayne Shorter like Wayne Shorter. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Speak No Evil, a 1965 release on Blue Note with a devilishly good band, is a great place to see Shorter’s transition from bop to avant-garde take shape.
11. DAVID S. WARE. It could be said that David S. Ware was the tenor saxophonist of the 1990s. Though he got his start back in the loft jazz scene with the trio Apogee and a mid ’70s stint with Cecil Taylor, he didn’t truly hit his stride until forming his own quartet. His massive, leonine tone and utterly disciplined mastery of phrasing and harmonics, which arose out of the language of Sonny Rollins but journeyed far out into realms of post-Ayler, post-Sanders cosmic exploration, made him an awe-inspiring live act. His studio albums, though often extraordinarily powerful, rarely captured his full majesty. In the wake of recent health problems, he’s become a more introspective, spiritually questing improviser, though he can still blow the walls down when he feels like it. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Live in the World, a three-CD set documenting three mid-2000s concerts with three different drummers; Live in Vilnius, a double LP capturing the quartet in full flight on its final European tour.
RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA’S 5 FAVORITE SAXOPHONISTS
CHARLIE PARKER. The Savoy Recordings changed my life. On a bad day, Bird sounded better
than most folks do on their best days.
JOHN COLTRANE. The original Impressions album is a beautiful study in modern approaches to
improvisation. I always go back to Trane for inspiration.
BUNKY GREEN. An underground hero of the alto saxophone who conscientiously developed a new vocabulary and a new voice worthy of study by generations to come.
GARY BARTZ. Gary sings the truth every time the horn touches his lips.
STEVE COLEMAN. Quite possibly the most important alto saxophone player of the last 20+ years.
Our week-long countdown reaches its midpoint, as we offer you #s 30-21 of the 50 Greatest Saxophonists Ever. And don’t miss a bonus list at the end – Darius Jones‘ five favorite saxophonists! Shall we begin?
30. HENRY THREADGILL. An alto saxophonist of searing intensity, Henry Threadgill is also one of the most imaginative composers on the planet. His early musical history coincides with the mid-’60s inception of Chicago’s legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians; through the organization he met key collaborators such as Muhal Richard Abrams (whose Young at Heart/Wise in Time marked Threadgill’s recorded debut) and Anthony Braxton. Threadgill also soaked up gospel, polka and classical music at an early age, and he soon began dreaming up his own fantastical, stylistically boundless aesthetic, first showcased as part of Air, a collective trio that reconciled ’60s-style free jazz with ragtime. From there, Threadgill’s palette broadened exponentially, yielding a series of unconventional ensembles, including the double-drum Sextett, the two-tuba and two-guitar Very Very Circus, and Threadgill’s current working band, an entrancing sextet known as Zooid. Threadgill continues to double on flute, but his signature instrument remains the alto sax—the mercurial x-factor in his obsessive, micro-detailed sound world. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: The Sextett is Threadgill’s most accessible band, and its dazzling string of ’80s albums is a great place to get acquainted. Rag, Bush and All, from 1989, may have a slight edge on its predecessor, 1987′s Easily Slip Into Another World, but both are outstanding.
29. BEN WEBSTER. A contemporary of Coleman Hawkins and a product of the rich Kansas City jazz scene, Webster lacked the easy expressiveness of some of his rivals, but had a fat, ragged sound all his own, and the ability to sweeten it up when called upon to do so. A stalwart of Duke Ellington’s orchestra for several years, his stormy playing is less known today thanks to a limited number of releases as a bandleader, but he’s well worth exploring for the distinct quality he brought to the instrument. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Some of Webster’s best playing is on hard-to-find live dates from his European years, but Soulville, a 1957 exercise with the Oscar Peterson Trio, is a good a place as any to get into his earthy, rough tone.
28. LESTER YOUNG. Young was a game-changer, his light, floating style a near-total counterpoint to the dominant saxophone voice of the time, the blustering Coleman Hawkins. His crucial recordings were all made during the swing era of the late 1930s toe early 1940s, though his career continued until his early death in 1959. His partnerships with Count Basie and Billie Holiday inspired him to most of his greatest heights, though he made some excellent records as a leader, notably the 1956 album The Jazz Giants, which offers a mix of extended, hard-swinging tunes and brooding balladry. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Count Basie’s Complete Original American Decca Recordings shows you what Young was doing between 1937 and 1939.
27. STAN GETZ. A hugely influential tenor player with an impeccable and extraordinarily beautiful tone, Getz began his career during the swing era of the 1940s, but first achieved major popularity in the early 1950s. A few years later, he began combining jazz with Brazilian bossa nova and had a huge hit with “The Girl from Ipanema,” featuring vocals by Astrud Gilberto. He kept working right up until his death in 1991, rarely losing a step and often making surprisingly challenging albums. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Quintets: The Clef & Norgran Studio Albums, a three-disc compilation of early ’50s masterpieces, cool and lush without resorting to strings, vocalists or other crutches.
26. DON DIETRICH/JIM SAUTER. These two are paired because they’re difficult to imagine separately. As two-thirds of Borbetomagus, they’ve blended free jazz, improv and noise for over 30 years, and while the Borbeto sound is almost instantly recognizable (in the kind of circles where people have heard of this stuff at all, obviously), discerning Jim from Don within the swirling storm can be difficult even for the men themselves. Besides, one of their major innovations—the “bells together” technique, which is exactly what it sounds like—requires two horns to execute. So really, symbiosis and collaboration are the point. But if you must separate them, Jim’s the one with the beard and Don’s the one with the glasses. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Barbed Wire Maggots, originally a two-track LP expanded on CD; like sandpapering your eardrums, but in the best possible way.
25. CHARLES GAYLE. A hurricane disguised as a tall, thin old man, Gayle is post-Albert Ayler, post-Pharoah Sanders, even post-music at times. His raw, totally improvised entreaties to God are the equivalent of an Old Testament prophet crying out in the desert, his ever-shifting rhythm sections scuffling and talking mostly to each other as he barrels ahead, mostly on the tenor but sometimes on alto or even bass clarinet, fierce intensity and self-taught but still impressive technique combining into a sound unlike any other free jazz player on Earth, old or new. He also plays the piano sometimes, and isn’t all wild roars—his ballads have a remarkable desolation. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Touchin’ On Trane, where he restrains himself somewhat to pay tribute to the John Coltrane of Interstellar Space and Stellar Regions, backed by bassist William Parker and former Coltrane drummer Rashied Ali.
24. LOU DONALDSON. This funky, bluesy alto player’s been leading bands since the mid-1950s, beginning as a hard bopper (he worked with Art Blakey immediately prior to the drummer forming the Jazz Messengers) and moving in a more soulful, groove-oriented direction at the dawn of the ’60s. His organ-driven dates like Alligator Boogaloo and Midnight Creeper offer thick slabs of funk, the occasional ill-advised cover tune surrounded by one foot-tapping original after another. Some might say a little of this stuff goes a long way, but Donaldson’s got enough of a fan base among blues, R&B and soul listeners that frustrating jazz nerds was likely never a big concern for him. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: The Natural Soul, a 1962 soul-jazz workout featuring trumpeter Tommy Turrentine, guitarist Grant Green, organist Big John Patton and drummer Ben Dixon.
23. JD ALLEN. A sharp, expressive tenor player whose reputation has grown rapidly in recent years, Allen got a slow start as a solo act, releasing two discs in 1999 and 2002 that went nowhere. Following several years as an in-demand sideman, he formed a trio with bassist Gregg August and drummer Rudy Royston that’s made four terrific albums to date. Allen’s compositions are concise, introspective vignettes (2011’s Victory! packed 12 tracks into 36 minutes) that showcase his Coltrane-in-’64 tone and his focused interplay with his bandmates. He can also be heard regularly backing two adventurous trumpeters: in Jeremy Pelt’s quintet and David Weiss’s Point of Departure. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Victory!, the trio’s shortest and/but most potent statement to date.
22. CANNONBALL ADDERLEY. This burly alto saxophonist, who also played soprano in his later years, combined hard bop and soul into a funky, melodic, hard-swinging sound that brought him chart hits (“This Here” and “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”) and steady work on the road. In the mid-1950s, Adderley and his cornet-playing brother Nat had an unsuccessful band; after Cannonball did a short stint with Miles Davis (he’s on Kind of Blue and Milestones), they formed a new band which carried them through the 1960s. In addition to keyboardist Joe Zawinul, the group featured a second saxophone for a while—first played by Yusef Lateef, then Charles Lloyd. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco, a joyful, hard-swinging 1959 live date that includes “This Here.”
21. ARCHIE SHEPP. Shepp rarely gets the credit he deserves for having been an early adapter of avant-garde ideas (he partnered with trumpeter Bill Dixon in 1962), possibly because he figured out early on what he wanted to do with the music and stuck with it. One of the first players to deliberately break with the established hard bop style of the day, he settled into a rich and identifiable groove by combining Afrocentric rhythms and themes with leaping, sometimes extravagant free jazz sax lines. Though he rarely went as far afield as the lines of Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler, he could not have found a more effective way to deliver his chosen message. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: 1974’s Kwanza, released on Impulse! during a particularly strong period for Shepp, finds him laying some seriously spastic sax cuts over a fierce band as well-versed in Afro-pop and hard funk as jazz improv.
BONUS LIST: DARIUS JONES’ 5 FAVORITE SAXOPHONISTS
DEXTER GORDON. Dexter is my home base. His sense of sound, phrasing, harmony, and attitude as an improviser is so inspiring. It completely centers me when I am lost in a sea of esoteric madness.
HENRY THREADGILL. In many ways Henry is what I am striving to be as an artist. He has a very distinct sound/language on his instruments and as a composer. Henry is so down to earth and unique in his perception of life too. I love how he approaches music like an artist of any discipline. Also no matter how sophisticated his music is it still retains soulfulness. He is a major influence.
MACEO PARKER. Joy and happiness is what I think of when I hear Maceo. That is something I don’t feel from a lot of players. Also his sense of phrasing and groove is unbelievable. His commitment to the music that he wanted to play is also inspiring. You can hear the ability to play anything in his playing. But he chose to play music that makes himself and other people happy. So deep!
THOMAS CHAPIN. Thomas was the saxophonist that got me really thinking about expressing my personality through my instrument. I can’t help but to feel this deep sense of connection to self when he plays. He is totally putting himself out there. No matter the perception or context. Just getting off on himself and the band.
JAN GARBAREK. Patience is what I think about every time I listen to Jan. Totally lyrical. Nothing to prove. Completely allowing the music to unfold in the manor that it wants to unfold. His sound is unbelievable. Plus he is not afraid to just play a melody. Beautiful musician.
Welcome to the official Burning Ambulance countdown of the 50 Greatest Saxophonists Ever. The list was determined by means we shall not disclose, though a number of jazz critics and musicians offered their opinions at various points along the way. Clifford Allen, Leonard Pierce, and Hank Shteamer contributed blurbs.
This countdown will be running all week, so let’s get started! Here are #s 50-41.
50. KAORU ABE. This self-taught Japanese maniac died of a drug overdose at 29, but left behind a string of albums, mostly live recordings and mostly solo. He also collaborated with some notable skronk-minded improvisers, though, including guitarist Derek Bailey, trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, and drummer Milford Graves, among others. While he could muster an unholy screech, his command of the saxophone’s dynamic range allowed him to teleport between melancholy, genuinely beautiful melodies and a sinus-clearing, post-Ayler shriek almost instantaneously. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Mass Projection and Gradually Projection, twin live duels with guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, recorded at a single epic show.
49. STEVE LACY. Most saxophone greats register as part of a continuum, but the rare soprano specialist Steve Lacy always seemed like an isolated point in space. It wasn’t that Lacy cut himself off from tradition; he idolized Sidney Bechet, and he devoted himself to Thelonious Monk‘s music with unparalleled rigor. But Lacy’s mature aesthetic, realized with his Paris-based working band (active in one form or another from the early ’70s through the early ’90s), was sui generis: a blend of Ellingtonian warmth, playful eccentricity and bracingly unfettered experimentation. Lacy’s droll melodies and peculiar, honk-like timbre, as well as his obsession with avant-garde poetry—which inspired the vocal pieces he composed for his wife, vocalist Irene Aebi—helped make up one of the most rewarding acquired tastes in jazz history. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: The Gleam (1987) shows off Lacy’s signature sextet in top form. Another standout is Trickles, a 1976 quartet date that includes longtime Lacy collaborator, trombonist Roswell Rudd.
48. JOSHUA REDMAN. Dewey Redman’s son came out of the gate hyped to the skies, but it wasn’t until album number three, 1994’s MoodSwing, that he started to get interesting. His tone and style couldn’t be more different from his father’s; he’s a descendant of Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, and pre-1960 John Coltrane. But he’s comfortable experimenting with a variety of rhythms, and seems to really enjoy trading ideas with other saxophonists, including Dewey on 2007’s excellent Back East. A strong, middle-of-the-road player, Redman has shrugged off the hype and is now a player consistently worth hearing. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Back East and 2009’s Compass, on which he occasionally fronts a double rhythm section.
47. KEN VANDERMARK. A Chicagoan with a mechanic’s haircut, Vandermark’s powerful tenor (he’s a multi-instrumentalist, but the tenor is his primary and best-known horn) has burst out of records by groups as disparate as the Flying Luttenbachers, his own DKV Trio and Vandermark 5, and Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet. He’s also made solid friendships/partnerships with important players on the Scandinavian free jazz/improv scene, collaborating frequently with players like drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, reedist Mats Gustafsson, et al. His sound is muscular, blustery, capable of high-powered skronk but also firmly committed to melody and swing, and tunes. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Fred Anderson/DKV Trio, a 1996 collaboration that showcased the modern Chicago sound at full power; Double or Nothing, a partnering of the DKV Trio with AALY Trio for some extended clatter ’n’ blare.
46. MATANA ROBERTS. A Chicago-raised alto player who’s making quite a reputation for herself as a composer and conceptualist, Roberts first came to many listeners’ attention as a member of the jazz-funk-rock conducted improvisation ensemble Burnt Sugar. As a leader, she combines a biting, fierce tone on the horn with a broad artistic palette, a need to tell larger stories and present multi-media shows rather than just collections of tunes, and a willingness to hire any kind of instrumentalist she feels will help her get her point across. Roberts is a woman who recognizes no external limitations on her creativity. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Roberts’ latest album, Coin Coin Part One: Gens de Couleur Libres, is the first stage of an intense multi-part journey into history: hers, her family’s, and America’s. It’s also astonishingly beautiful and emotionally affecting music.
45. TIM BERNE. Quick-witted and sharp of tone, this master of the alto and baritone saxes leads acerbic, urban bands that blend R&B grooves, extended compositional forms, and stinging barbs of noise via keyboards or electric guitar. A former student of Julius Hemphill, Berne’s music combines the earthy and the abstract into something totally unique. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Fulton Street Maul, an out-of-print Columbia release(!) featuring Bill Frisell on guitar, Hank Roberts on cello and Alex Cline on percussion—almost the same instrumentation as Hemphill’s Dogon A.D.
44. DEWEY REDMAN. Probably best known for his partnerships with both Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett in the 1970s, Redman made more than a few brilliant albums under his own name, too. His tone was one of the most piercingly human in jazz; he frequently sounded like tears were going to start leaking from the horn’s bell, but he could also leap and squawk with the best of the free players, and he was every bit as willing to explore sounds from across the globe as Pharoah Sanders or Don Cherry. A major voice not always recognized as such. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: All the mid ’70s Jarrett albums, plus his own Tarik, recorded in Paris in 1969 with Art Ensemble of Chicago bassist Malachi Favors and drummer Ed Blackwell. And don’t sleep on Momentum Space, his 1999 three-way collaboration with pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Elvin Jones.
43. JOHNNY GRIFFIN. A hard bop tenor player originally from Chicago, Griffin is notable for his brief tenure with Thelonious Monk (check out the twin live albums Misterioso and Thelonious in Action), but he also had a decades-long solo career including albums on Blue Note and Riverside in the 1950s. His hard-charging style (for a time he was known as the world’s fastest saxophonist) was oddly well-suited to Monk’s lurching compositions, while on his own he combined fierce and swinging blues with a furrowed-brow tenderness on ballads. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: A Blowin’ Session, a tremendous 1957 Blue Note album on which Griffin more than holds his own against John Coltrane and Hank Mobley, with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Blakey on drums.
42. IKE QUEBEC. Tenorman Ike Quebec came out of the Coleman Hawkins school, a throaty and keening player who, while a “man without a country” among the modernists of the early 1960s, nevertheless was a major asset to Blue Note. He was one of the slightly older players who encouraged Alfred Lion to record the new music of Thelonious Monk, Elmo Hope and Bud Powell in the late ’40s (Quebec had recorded with Tiny Grimes and J.C. Heard for the then-fledgling label). Incidentally, his cousin, altoist Danny Quebec West, recorded with Monk on the pianist’s 1947 Genius sessions. Quebec had an impressive run between 1959 and 1963, working with Sonny Clark, Bennie Green, Freddie Roach, Grant Green and Milt Hinton over six albums as a leader and a handful of jukebox singles. 1961’s Heavy Soul (with Roach, Hinton and Al Harewood) is the first of these records and probably the strongest of the bunch, Quebec velvety and wide-open across a spry rhythm section on the opening “Acquitted,” but it’s on the spectral ballads that he and the vibrato-heavy Roach stretch out into gorgeous, taffy-like and unhurried brilliance. Both sandblasted and caressing, Quebec has one of the most affecting tenor tones I’ve heard, and it’s no wonder that his art embodied the soul-jazz mainstream saxophone to an unhurried “T.” ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Heavy Soul and the two-CD set The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions.
41. JEMEEL MOONDOC. A veteran of the New York loft jazz scene who saw his rhythm section pilfered by his former teacher, Cecil Taylor, Moondoc has one of the most recognizable alto saxophone sounds around: an amalgam of Ornette Coleman’s bluesy crying with the sharp edge of Jackie McLean and the ferocity of 1960s “fire music” free tenor players. His band Muntu made crucial albums in the late ’70s and early ’80s, but it wasn’t until he returned from economic exile in the mid ’90s that he truly got his due. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Muntu Recordings, a three-disc NoBusiness box that gathers rare 1970s material; New World Pygmies, a 1998 set of duos with bassist William Parker, on Eremite.
