Keith Tippett's debut album as a bandleader was and remains a rather remarkable affair in that it was the first engagement of British young people who came up in
rock,
pop, and
blues bands to play
jazz.
Tippett himself is a
classically trained musician who came to
jazz via
Mingus,
George Russell,
Coltrane, and
Pharoah Sanders, but his compositional element also owes to composers such as
Darius Milhaud,
Vaughan Williams, and
Frederick Delius. His front-line group contains
the Soft Machine's
Elton Dean, plus
Nick Evans and
Marc Charig, while his rhythm section contains drummer
Alan Jackson and bassist
Jeff Clyne -- whose bowing sensibilities are not only highly developed but provocative as well. All eight tracks were composed and arranged by
Tippett, but his penchant for writing for a particular group of musicians is very keen here: check the
Charig solo in
"I Wish There Was Nowhere," Tippett's own solo in
"Violence," and the saxophonistry of
Dean in
"Stately Dance for Miss Primm" and both versions of
"This Evening Was Like Last Year." Evans' trombone work so thoroughly saturates most charts that it's impossible to single anything out as a specific vehicle for him.
Tippett's engaging harmonic sensibilities wrap around tonal investigation, a deeply committed sense of the
blues and swing, and a color palette that owes plenty to
Gil Evans without sounding the least bit derivative. This is brave
jazz that makes use of space, harmonic organization, and
free improv, much more so than some of his contemporaries who would just as soon do away with
jazz as deepen or widen it. Very fine indeed. ~ Thom Jurek
