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The resurrection (transmogrification) yet again of producer Joel Dorn is good news for devotees of mainstream (occasionally pushed-to-the-edge) jazz. Dorn’s newest venture, Hyena Records, is dedicated to restoring to circulation records from his earliest solo business, Night Records and to bringing out music from private collectors’ tapes of live concert recordings.
Rahsaan Roland Kirk -
The Man Who Cried Fire (Hyena/Night Records) Oct 8
The Man Who Cried Fire is a curiosity, a patchwork of live performances by the jazz prophet, virtuoso multi-instrumentalist, defender (and vivid de- and re-constructionist) of jazz roots music, and blind visionary Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Occasionally diminished in audio quality, choppy in the splicing together of disparate performances, The Man Who Cried Fire is nonetheless breathtaking. Why? Because any Kirk is a valued addition to the jazz oeuvre; because Kirk engages the listener constantly; because his circular breathing technique enables him to overpower the listener with a stream-of-consciousness dialogue; because his shifting among instruments keeps the music changing.
Check out, in particular, his remarkably mimicry (using a trumpet with a saxophone mouthpiece) of Miles Davis’ "Bye-Bye Blackbird"; his eponymous "Multi-Horn Variations," a three horn chase, conversation and call and response; his talk-through-the-flute play on "You Did It, You Did It," which recurs (along with scatting) on an energized "Mr. P.C."; and the rarity of his recording on clarinet.
Cannonball Adderley -
Radio Nights (Hyena/Night Records) Oct 8
Radio Nights captures Cannonball Adderley live with a changing band—quartet, quintet and sextet, the last with Charles Lloyd on tenor in lieu of Yusef Lateef. Typical of Cannon’s late-sixties recordings, he has great facility on the alto, a soulfulness enhanced by pianist Joe Zawinul, the occasional capacity to take the music out (as when he strips "Fiddler on the Roof" bare of recognizable melody and uses it as a point of departure for impressive wailing), and savvy sidemen. These last are heard to best advantage in the mellifluous ensemble horn play on "Work Song." There are better Cannonball Adderley sessions from this era (my favorites are those with Yusef Lateef, whose exoticism in choice of instruments gave an entire new dimension to Cannonball’s core of soulfulness), but there is nothing to complain of here and plenty to enjoy.
Eddie Harris -
A Tale of Two Cities (Hyena/Night Records) Oct 15
A Tale of Two Cities is the kind of CD I deplore to receive (and often decline to audition), as I start with a negative assumption—Eddie Harris will resort to gimmickry, as with his electric sax, and the music will be cliched. Boy, was I wrong. Harris has no surprises, but his simple horn lines reach into the heart of a song’s emotion, and these live performances have the satisfaction of an evening well spent at a local jazz emporium—drinking or not, one sits back and savors a tenor’s explication of the blues fundamentals ("Chicago Serenade" just washes over you with chorus after chorus), a daring assay into scat, the challenge of "Cherokee" and an overall journeyman’s workmanship on jazz classic after jazz classic. I don’t know if I’ll listen to this often—but when I do, I’ll be plenty satisfied.
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last update 30 October 2002