Justice For George Coleman
Being the saxophonist in a Miles Davis band was never the easiest job in the world. Even if he liked you, he often led by challenging his musicians, giving them enigmatic or even contradictory instructions. Once, when saxophonist Gary Bartz complained that he didn’t like what Keith Jarrett was playing behind him, and asked Davis to rein the keyboardist in, the trumpeter instead told Jarrett that Bartz loved was he was playing and wanted to hear more of it. When John Coltrane earnestly explained to Davis that he was having trouble figuring out how to end his solos, Davis replied, “Try taking the horn out of your mouth.” Dave Liebman, Davis’ saxophonist for a period in the early ’70s, felt lost within the band’s stormy sound (two electric guitars, deep funk bass, multiple percussionists, Davis’s own piercing one-finger synth stabs) and asked what his role was; the trumpeter replied that audiences liked to watch a saxophonist’s fingers move while he played.
Some saxophonists, like Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, and Kenny Garrett, spent years in the band. Others, like Hank Mobley or Sam Rivers, only played a few dates and then went back to what they were doing before, leaving just a few brilliant records behind — Someday My Prince Will Come, The Complete Friday And Saturday Nights At The Blackhawk and Miles Davis At Carnegie Hall in Mobley’s case, Miles In Tokyo in Rivers’. Sonny Stitt’s tenure as a member of Davis’ group went entirely unrecorded.
In 1962, Davis began working with tenor saxophonist George Coleman, a player from Memphis who had already made a name for himself with Max Roach, Lee Morgan, and Jimmy Smith, among others. He was a strong player with a grounding in bebop and a deep feeling for the blues. They first played together at the Blackhawk in San Francisco, in a group that also included Coleman’s high school friend, pianist Harold Mabern.
Back in New York the following year, Davis began assembling a new band, recruiting pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams to back himself and Coleman. They went into the studio and recorded three pieces — “Seven Steps To Heaven,” “Joshua,” and “So Near, So Far,” for the album Seven Steps To Heaven, which was released in the fall of 1963. (The rest of the disc featured Davis and Coleman accompanied by pianist Victor Feldman, Carter, and drummer Frank Butler.)
Before the album even came out, Davis and his new band were already on the road. They went to Europe, where they played the Festival Mondial du Jazz in Antibes. They were there for three nights, July 26 through 28, and portions of the second performance were released as Miles Davis In Europe, which was nominated for a Grammy in 1965. Their performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September of that year was also recorded, though it went unreleased until 2007. The final live recording of the quintet with George Coleman was a concert at Carnegie Hall from February 12, 1964, which was originally split into two LPs: My Funny Valentine contained all the ballads, while “Four” & More featured the uptempo numbers.
In late spring 1964, Coleman left the group. There were multiple reasons for his departure. Despite being the youngest member of the quintet, Tony Williams was a dominant voice, striving to push the band in new and more abstract directions. Before joining Davis, he had worked with Sam Rivers in Boston, and during his tenure with the trumpeter he also recorded with Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Grachan Moncur III, and Jackie McLean, and made two forward-looking albums of his own, Life Time and Spring. He saw Coleman as yesterday’s man, a drag on the band who was limiting its potential.
In Davis’ autobiography, he wrote, “Sometimes when I would finish my solo and start to go in the back, Tony would say to me, ‘Take George with you.’ Tony didn’t like George because George played everything almost perfectly, and Tony didn’t like saxophone players like that… He was a hell of a musician, but Tony didn’t like him.”
The albums mentioned above, as well as the newly released The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Miles In France 1963 & 1964, proves that Williams was utterly wrong in his assessment of Coleman’s role in the band. The box, which is available in 5CD and 8LP configurations, contains five full concerts: three from July 1963 with Coleman, and two from October 1964 with Wayne Shorter. The second of the 1963 shows has been released before, as Miles In Europe, but it’s got extra tracks here, and some performances are presented in full when they had previously been edited to fit on vinyl. The other four concerts are entirely unheard.
The quintet didn’t have very much new music to their name, but over the three concerts you do get to hear them play “Seven Steps to Heaven” once and “Joshua” twice, along with a range of tunes that were familiar parts of Davis’ live sets in the early ’60s, like “So What,” “My Funny Valentine,” “If I Were A Bell,” “Walkin’,” and “Stella By Starlight.” And every time Coleman steps to the microphone, he hits it out of the park. His solos are imaginative but disciplined, honoring the actual song he’s playing but taking the melody out for a spin and delivering one master class after another in how to build energy gradually and then bring it back down. A lot of players don’t finish a solo; they just stop. George Coleman’s solos have a beginning, a middle and an end.
Still, if you know what the other three members of the band were up to in 1963 and 1964, it’s easy to understand why they might have made him feel unwelcome. They were all part of what’s come to be known as the “in-out” school of post-bop, as heard on Blue Note albums by Sam Rivers, Bobby Hutcherson, Andrew Hill and, yeah, Wayne Shorter.
Shorter might have been somewhat constrained in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, where he’d been since 1959, but it was still obvious that with him, Hancock, Carter, and Williams would be able to take the music farther out — not all the way to free jazz, but certainly into realms that might unsettle the more conservative audience who came to see Miles Davis, one of the few jazz musicians to get profiles in major magazines.
Some years ago, I interviewed Coleman, and he told me about his tenure with Davis and the conflicts with Hancock, Carter and Williams, which clearly still burned. “They were these so-called young lions and they wanted to step out into the so-called hip zone of playing the out stuff, because they thought that was hip… they said, ‘We don’t want no old-fashioned guy like you playing.’
“I was regarded as old-fashioned, but Miles always respected me. Whatever I played was cool with Miles. But when he would leave, then they felt like, why should you take over this spot?”
One night, at San Francisco’s Jazz Workshop, Coleman had had enough. “Miles kicked off a fast blues, I think it was ‘Walkin’,’ and he played his solo and then he got off the stand and went off to the bar like he would oftentimes do, to have his champagne. So he played his solo, I laid back, Herbie played after him, and when it came time for me to play, I shocked all of ’em. ‘Cause I played some of the weirdest stuff. I just wanted to show them that I could play that kind of shit if I really had to…And when I did that, these guys’ eyes popped out. All of ’em. Ron, Herbie and Tony.”
The Shorter-Hancock-Carter-Williams band is commonly referred to as Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet. And I love the music they made, particularly the 1967 studio album Nefertiti, and the 8CD Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel 1965 (out of print in physical form, but available on streaming services), which is some of the most high-wire live jazz you’ll ever hear, the sound of a band totally unafraid to alienate the listener and challenge each other moment by moment. But I also love what George Coleman was able to bring to the band in the year or so that he held down the saxophone position. The three concerts included in the latest Bootleg Series box make possibly the best argument yet for his tenure, and should inspire re-evaluation in any serious fan of Miles Davis’s 1960s work.
TAKE 10
Roy Hargrove's Crisol - "Rumba Roy"
In 1997, trumpeter Roy Hargrove brought American and Cuban musicians together for Habana, a genuinely pathbreaking record that won a Grammy in 1998 for Best Latin Jazz Album. He dubbed the band that arose out of this project Crisol, and recorded a second album in Guadeloupe in 1998, but it sat on the shelf until this year. Well, Grande-Terre is every bit as awesome as its predecessor. A few of the players — trombonist Frank Lacy, percussionists Miguel “Anga” DÃaz and José Luis “Changuito” Quintana — are the same, but many others are new. On the opening track, “Rumba Roy,” the four-horn front line of Hargrove, Lacy, alto saxophonist Sherman Irby and tenor saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart absolutely blaze through a speedy, complex melody before the trumpeter launches a comet of a solo over hard-charging piano, booming bass, and complex, layered percussion. Hargrove was an incredible talent, and this album burnishes his legacy. (From Grande-Terre, out now via Verve.)
The Bad Plus - "Carrier"
The Bad Plus’s transitions over the past few years have been something to behold. In January 2018, they released Never Stop II, their first album with pianist Orrin Evans; that was followed by Activate Infinity in October 2019. But then, in 2022, they took an entirely new form, transitioning via a self-titled album from a piano trio to a quartet, with Evans out and saxophonist Chris Speed and guitarist Ben Monder in. Complex Emotions is the second album by the quartet version, and their new sound is thoroughly established at this point. They’re not experimenting or guessing; they’re confident and declarative. “Carrier” is a slow but steady ballad led forward by a mantralike melody from Speed, with Monder contributing floating, atmospheric sounds that slip between delicately sculpted noise and beautiful harmonies. The band’s remaining founders, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King, lay down an insistent rhythm. Keep moving forward. (From Complex Emotions, out now via Mack Avenue.)
Matt Slocum - "Consolation Prize"
Drummer Matt Slocum is someone I probably should have been paying attention to for a while, but now I’m playing catchup. This is his seventh album as a leader, his third for the Sunnyside label, and it’s a trio date featuring tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III, who also played on Slocum’s 2022 album With Love And Sadness and his 2014 release Black Elk’s Dream, and bassist Larry Grenadier, who was on With Love And Sadness and 2019’s Sanctuary (a trio date with pianist Gerald Clayton). They play five of Slocum’s compositions and three standards, including Thelonious Monk’s “We See.” The music has a deep, warm sound, Grenadier’s almost subliminal bass blending beautifully with Slocum’s light, dancing drum style, and Smith floating with one foot on the ground. The instrument placement is interesting, with sax in the left speaker, drums in the right, and bass in the middle. Listen on headphones. (From Lion Dance, out now via Sunnyside.)
Igmar Thomas Revive Big Band - "Words I Manifest" (Feat. Raydar Ellis & Sean Jones)
This album, though it’s led by trumpeter Igmar Thomas, exists as a tribute to the spirit of promoter Meghan Stabile, who sought through her work with Revive Music Group to bring jazz to a young, hip-hop-oriented audience. Stabile took her own life in 2022 after years of personal struggle, but the spirit of Revive — that jazz is a live and living music that’ll kick your ass in the best possible way — lives on through this record and the work of artists she supported and collaborated with, like Thomas, Robert Glasper, Thundercat and many, many more. It’s jammed with too many boldface names to list here, and features original music as well as big band re-arrangements of hip-hop songs, like this rip-roaring version of Gang Starr’s “Words I Manifest” with producer and MC Brian “Raydar” Ellis delivering Guru’s lyrics and Sean Jones laying down a trumpet solo like a napalm air strike. (From Like A Tree It Grows, out now via Soulspazm.)
Elin Forkelid - "Landslide"
Saxophonist Elin Forkelid is a key figure on the current Swedish avant-garde scene. She’s a member of the excellent sextet Anna Högberg Attack, and leads the quartet Sol Sol alongside guitarist David Stackenäs. (Drummer Anna Lund, of Attack, is also in Sol Sol.) Those groups are both louder and more aggro than the ensemble heard on Forkelid’s latest album under her own name, though. Songs To Keep You Company On A Dark Night is a quiet, meditative disc featuring Tobias Wiklund on trumpet and cornet, Stackenäs on guitar, and Mats Dimming on upright bass. No drummer. The album includes five of Forkelid’s compositions, and versions of Carla Bley’s “Ida Lupino” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” The latter begins with solo cornet, soon enough joined by acoustic guitar and subtle bass; Forkelid comes in later, harmonizing with Wiklund like a campfire singalong, hewing to the melody at first, then spiraling outward. (From Songs To Keep You Company On A Dark Night, out now via Sail Cabin.)
Ganavya - "Om Supreme" (Feat. Vijay Iyer & Immanuel Wilkins)
This is vocalist Ganavya Doraiswamy’s second album of 2024; her first, like the sky i’ve been too quiet, came out on Shabaka Hutchings’ Native Rebel label in March. He’s one of a slew of guests on this one, which also includes appearances from esperanza spalding, Wayne and Carolina Shorter, and on the track streaming here, pianist Vijay Iyer and alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins. I’ve always found “Om Supreme,” from Alice Coltrane’s 1975 album Eternity, a little unsettling. She plays it on Fender Rhodes, with six vocalists — three male, three female — singing her lyrics, which are about coming to California on a spiritual quest. But there’s something about the way they sing the word “California” that blurs the line between spiritual jazz and “welcome to our cult.” Ganavya changes “California” to “Houston,” and Iyer’s acoustic piano and Wilkins’ keening saxophone make the song much more earnest and less worrisome. Beautiful stuff. (From Daughter Of A Temple, out now via LEITER.)
Jeff Parker ETA IVtet - "Late Autumn"
For seven years beginning in 2016, guitarist Jeff Parker and his bandmates here — alto saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose — maintained a Monday night residency at the Enfield Tennis Academy (yeah, that’s an Infinite Jest reference) in Los Angeles. In 2022, they released a double LP, Mondays At The Enfield Tennis Academy, featuring four untitled side-long jams, three from 2019 and one from 2021. ETA closed at the end of 2023, so this second double LP, which was entirely recorded on Jan. 2 of that year, serves as a memorial to the space and possibly to the band. “Late Autumn,” a collectively and spontaneously composed piece, begins with gentle solo guitar from Parker, before Johnson, Butterss, and Bellerose gradually slide in around him, the drummer seeming to do the least but in fact giving the music a sunrise-over-the-temple feel with gentle cymbal and gong strikes. (From The Way Out Of Easy, out now via International Anthem.)
Cecil Taylor - "February 10, 1980 I"
In February 1980, pianist Cecil Taylor brought a new group into the New York club Fat Tuesday’s, on 17th Street and Third Avenue. It included his ever-present creative partner, alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons; violinist Ramsey Ameen; bassist Alan Silva; drummer Sunny Murray; and percussionist Jerome Cooper. Over the course of three nights, they recorded four sets of music. One was released in 1981 as It Is In The Brewing Luminous; that’s where I borrowed the title of my book In The Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music Of Cecil Taylor, which is out now and makes a great gift. Anyway, two more performances have now been released. This is the fourth one, the end of the three-night engagement. It’s a continuous 70-minute piece divided into five sections “for listener convenience”; everyone is playing at full strength from first note to last, so just dive in and let it wash over you. (From Cecil Taylor Unit Live At Fat Tuesday’s February 10, 1980 First Visit, out now via Werner’s Ezz-thetics.)
Charles Tolliver - "Black Vibrations"
Trumpeter Charles Tolliver’s first appearance on record was a version of Thelonious Monk’s “Brilliant Corners” on the 1965 Impulse! compilation The New Wave In Jazz. Within a few years, he had formed the Strata-East label with pianist Stanley Cowell, and was leading a group he called Music Inc. This live disc, recorded at a club in Edmonton, Alberta (that’s in Canada) in 1973, features John Hicks on piano, Clint Houston on bass, and Cliff Barbaro on drums, and it absolutely blazes. “Black Vibrations” is the set opener, and they tear into it; Hicks starts things off with a single huge chord, after which Tolliver takes a high-flying solo that reminds you what a powerhouse he is. The piece was written by Clint Houston, so there’s a bass solo, too, but don’t let that deter you. These guys rolled into town on this night like a biker gang, and absolutely destroyed. (From Live At The Captain’s Cabin, out 11/29 via Real To Reel.)
McCoy Tyner & Joe Henderson - "We'll Be Together Again"
Slugs’ (aka Slugs’ Saloon) was a jazz club that existed from 1964 to 1972 at 242 East 3rd Street between Avenues B and C in Manhattan, a location occupied today by Rossy’s Bakery & Coffee Shop. It could legally hold about 75 people, but was often much more crowded than that, despite the roughness of the neighborhood. You could buy drugs inside or outside, and if you parked your car in front it might not have its tires when you returned.
Still, in the late ’60s, Slugs’ was one of the best places to hear forward-looking jazz. Sun Ra held a regular Monday night residency for more than a year, and Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, and many others played the club. The late producer Michael Cuscuna told JazzTimes in a 2015 feature that Slugs’ “had all these unique ensembles that played in the studios but weren’t working groups. Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan and Harold Mabern and Billy Higgins… Or Joe Henderson, Cecil McBee, Joe Chambers and Bobby Hutcherson.”
Sadly, Slugs’ is forever linked to one of the great tragedies of jazz: the murder of trumpeter Lee Morgan by his girlfriend Helen. He was performing at the club in February 1972 when Helen came in. They had a verbal altercation that turned physical, and ended with her shooting him in the heart in the middle of the club. He died that night, and Slugs’ was gone by the end of the year, having become more of a morbid tourist attraction than a music venue.
Forces Of Nature is a new double live disc featuring one of those non-working groups Michael Cuscuna was describing — a quartet co-led by tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and pianist McCoy Tyner, with Henry Grimes on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. The recording is from the spring of 1966, when DeJohnette was best known as a member of saxophonist Charles Lloyd’s group with pianist Keith Jarrett and bassist Cecil McBee, and it’s not a bootleg; it was taped by professional engineer Orville O’Brien, and has been in DeJohnette’s possession ever since.
Henderson and Tyner had been playing together for a couple of years already; the pianist appeared on the saxophonist’s Blue Note albums Page One, In ‘n Out, and Inner Urge. Bassist Henry Grimes was the wild card. Though he’d recorded with Tyner in 1963, he was better known for playing with avant-gardists like Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, and Don Cherry. This is the only recording featuring this exact combination of players, and together they’re absolutely volcanic.
The nearly 90-minute recording features versions of two Henderson compositions, “In ‘n Out” and “Isotope”; Tyner’s “The Believer”; the standard “We’ll Be Together Again”; and “Taking Off,” which is credited to all four members and may have been a spontaneous creation, as it’s a high-energy, somewhat free blues explosion lasting nearly half an hour. This is an absolutely volcanic album that serves as tribute to three of its four players (DeJohnette is the only one still alive in 2024) and the room in which it was recorded. (From Forces Of Nature: Live At Slugs’, out now via Blue Note.)
OUTWARD BOUND
@allym00re Thank you to everyone who has provided helpful tips and advice per my recent videos. I appreciate your expertise and words of encouragment #trombone #jazztok #musician ♬ original sound – ally
