Bobby Naughton, Wadada Leo Smith, Perry Robinson: The Haunt

Avant Jazz / Free Improvisation / Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 2018-09-17
opakowanie: Jewelcaseowe etui
opis:
multikulti.com - ocena * * * * 1/2:
Ostatnimi czasy mechanizmy, znane ze światowej polityki dotarły nawet do świata jazzu. Czymże innym są nagłówki w rodzaju "Zaginiony Święty Graal Jazzu" w tekstach o "Both Directions At Once - The Lost Album" Johna Coltrane'a, jak nie fake newsem?. W czasach turbo-utowarowienia wszystkiego, przyjdzie nam się przyzwyczaić także i do takich manipulacji.
To oczywiście nie jest nagranie bez wartości. Czasem są powody, by uszanować wolę artysty i nie wydawać pośmiertnie nagrań, których on sam nie przeznaczył do wydania. Na szczęście to nie jest ten przypadek, ale czy ten materiał poszerza nasza wiedzę o muzyce Trane'a?. Myślę, że nie, rewolucja (za sprawą "A Love Supreme') dopiero miała nadejść, i bez wątpienia nadeszła, ale nie za sprawą wydanego właśnie "Zaginionego Świętego Graala Jazzu".

Dlaczego piszę o tym teraz?. Dlatego, że litewska oficyna NoBusiness Records wydała reedycję białego kruka jazzowej fonografii. I to pochodzącego z czasów, kiedy muzyka zawarta na płycie "The Haunt" była na indeksie kulturalnych instytucji w USA. Grana była w nowojorskich loftach, lokalach o zgoła innym standarcie niż w czasach współczesnych. Interesująco pisze o tych doświadczeniach Bruce Lee Gallanter z Downtown Music Gallery, w opisie powyższej płyty. Warto poczytać.

O ile nadmiarowość w odniesieniu do płyty "Both Directions At Once - The Lost Album" Johna Coltrane'a jest niesmaczna, o tyle milczenie dotyczące reedycji płyty "The Haunt" tria Bobby Naughton / Wadada Leo Smith / Perry Robinson jest już tylko smutne. Mamy bowiem do czynienia z albumem wyjątkowym, zdecydowanie trzecionurtowym, to awangardowy jazz mocno podmokły kameralistyką a.d. 1976. Niewiele jest takich nagrań!
Troje muzyków - Bobby Naughton, Wadada Leo Smith i Perry Robinson, obdarzonych darem twórczym (jakże niewielu ich jest na świecie) w historycznym nagraniu, które równie dobrze mogłoby powstać dzisiaj. To płyta niezwykle osobista, bardzo autentyczna i o wyraźnej autorskiej sygnaturze trójki bohaterów.
"The Haunt" tria Bobby Naughton / Wadada Leo Smith / Perry Robinson po prostu trzeba znać!
autor: Tomasz Konwent
Copyright © 1996-2018 Multikulti Project. All rights reserved

All About Jazz - ocena * * * * 1/2 :
You might have heard the cheer go up with the reissue of The Haunt, vibraphonist Bobby Naughton's 1976 trio recording with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and clarinetist Perry Robinson. Crate diggers have treasured the long out-of-print original release on Naughton's Otic Records. Thanks to Lithuania's NoBusiness Records, we have this important document remastered, plus an additional alternate take of "Slant."

Turning our wayback machine to the mid-1970s, creative jazz was being supplanted by jazz/rock and fusion. Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk were in self-imposed exiles and the creative world of the New York loft scene was all but unnoticed by major labels. Besides Naughton, Smith created his own label, Kabell Records to release his original music.

Quite a valuable document, this recording finds an intersection between chamber music and improvised jazz that had yet to be validated. Certainly, we had Jimmy Giuffre's trio free jazz Free Fall (Columbia, 1963), but this music feels more spacious and textured. Naughton, who began life as a pianist, applies a keyboard approach to his vibraharp. Notes are dispatched with an ever expanding touch, drifting and levitating while interweaving with Smith and Robinson's horns.

Both Naughton and Smith were Connecticut residents at the time, and both influenced each other. They co-founded The Creative Music Improvisers' Forum, which was modeled after Chicago's AACM, both were members of Anthony Braxton's Creative Orchestra, and Naughton can be heard on Smith's early ECM Recordings Divine Love (1979) and Spirit Catcher (1979), plus the yet to be reissued Leo Smith Trio The Mass On The World (Moers Music, 1978).

With the edition of Robinson's clarinet, Naughton adds a veteran of recoding sessions with Archie Shepp, Henry Grimes, Gunter Hampel, and Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra. He sounds both old school-ish and very modern at the same time. The music is delivered sans drummer and bassist, thus time is relative concept here. It is meditative in a slippery and dreamy manner, while also being carefully composed. Magic without a sleight of hand.
by Mark Corroto

Downtown Music Gallery:
After attending dozen of jazz gigs at places like the Village Vanguard, the Village Gate and the Five Spot, starting in fall of 1972, I went to hear music in loft spaces throughout the rest of the Seventies. Places like Studio Rivbea, Ladies Fort, Environ, the Brook & Studio We. There was a large influx of musicians moving to NY then and many of them played at and ran those loft spaces. I remember catching a group called Interface at Environ on several occasions, whose members included Perry Robinson on clarinet, Mark Whitecage on sax, John Fischer on piano & Phillip Wilson on drums.
I also caught Perry Robinson with Gunter Hampel’s Dream Galaxie Band. Mr. Robinson was the first clarinetist I heard that played freely. I was also buying records and finding out about more and more creative musicians and scenes, locally and elsewhere. I recall finding albums by a vibes player named Bobby Naughton, who was collaborating with future heroes like Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith and James Emery. I bought a number of albums led by Bobby Naughton and Wadada Leo Smith during the seventies but never got a chance to hear him live until the last few years and the Vision Fest (with WL Smith) and once in the early days of Victo with Mr. Braxton. I bought a copy of Bobby Naughton’s ‘The Haunt’ way back when it came out but haven’t heard in more then thirty years. Until this reissue.
What I find most interesting about this music is that it sounds more like chamber music, refined, most carefully arranged and exquisitely played. Mr. Naughton claims that he wrote the music mostly at the piano which he played before playing the vibes. The sound of his vibes are slowed down, dreamy and filled with soft drones. (Pre Wadada) Leo Smith’s trumpet and Perry Robinson’s clarinet also play with a dream-like haze, bending their notes together with the utmost restraint and care. Since most of this is slow spacious and calm, we must settle down and wait as thing s unfold. Is this music from another time (April 1976) and place (Blur Rock Studio, NYC)? Certainly, but it is also music that is timeless, ageless and special. Mr. Robinosn seems to have one foot in the past and the other in the present or future. He will start off by bending a note the way some one does on more ancient jazz records when swing was the thing in the forties and then play with a more modern tone as he and Smith become one sound/blend. The title of this disc, ‘The Haunt’ seems most appropriate since the music is most haunting. The final piece, which is also a bonus track and an alternate take of an earlier piece is perhaps the best one one s the trio take off and increase the level of intensity, spinning more quickly, the level of ingenuity, a marvel to behold.
This will take some time to fully absorb since it appears to me a unique gem outside of its time.
by Bruce Lee Gallanter

muzycy:
Bobby Naughton: Vibraharp
Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet
Perry Robinson: clarinet

utwory:
1. The Haunt 7:18
2. Slant 5:45
3. Places 8:11
4. Rose Island 9:14
5. Ordette 9:11
6. Slant (alternate take) 6:49

wydano: 2018-07
nagrano: Recorded April 21, 1976, Blue Rock Studio, NYC

more info: www.nobusinessrecords.com