The ever-dependable Superior Viaduct label of San Francisco is reissuing three slabs of primo avant-garde jazz on June 9, Albert Ayler’s In Greenwich Village, Sonny Sharrock’s Black Woman, and Byard Lancaster’s It’s Not Up to Us. It’s a deliciously wide-ranging yet interconnected trio of albums that are expanded upon further below.
As his discography is currently undergoing something of a resurgence, let’s start with the great saxophonist Albert Ayler’s In Greenwich Village, particularly as the performances it offers are directly related to the live material collected in ORG Music’s recent Record Store Day box set release Europe 1966 (a 4LP edition featuring music previously heard on the Hat Hut label’s 2CD Berlin, Lörrach, Paris & Stockholm Revisited).
Superior Viaduct’s trim reissue features Ayler’s band from that ’66 tour, with Ayler on saxophones, his brother Don Ayler on trumpet, Michel Samson on violin, William Folwell on bass, and Beaver Harris on drums, with the Stateside addition of Joel Friedman on cello and either Alan Silva or Henry Grimes completing a two-bass lineup with Folwell. In short, this is Ayler’s music at the height of its power, at once weightier and at its most breathtakingly expansive in its ecstatic energies.
The beautiful simplicity of Ayler’s melodies is in full effect, as is collective abstraction of a jaw-dropping intensity, with both aspects reaching an apex in “Truth is Marching In.” As amazing as Ayler’s studio albums could be (and a handful of masterpieces reside in that number), Ayler’s music fully flowered in the live setting, and for decades In Greenwich Village was the amongst the easiest ways to access its glories; the album came out on CD in 1989, with Love Cry (one of the aforementioned studio masterpieces) following in ’91.
In Greenwich Village and its 1978 2LP counterpart The Village Concerts were eventually combined by Impulse in ’98 as the 2CD Live In Greenwich Village – The Complete Impulse Recordings, but there’s something to be said for the punch of the original ’67 album, which remains as gripping in its relative brevity now as when I first heard it after buying the CD in 1990. In short, In Greenwich Village is a core addition to any library of free jazz recordings.
This essentiality is shared with Sonny Sharrock’s Black Woman. Released in 1969 on the Atlantic Records subsidiary Vortex, the LP was the guitarist’s debut as a leader, though his appearances on record began in ’66 with his participation on saxophonist Pharoah Sanders’ Tauhid (for Impulse) and saxophonist Marzette Watts’ Marzette Watts and Company (for ESP-Disk).
It’s especially fitting that Black Woman is being reissued alongside In Greenwich Village, as Sharrock is to jazz guitar as Ayler is to jazz saxophone. This comparison might be a little reductive, but it’s based in a solid reality, as both brought sui generis approaches to the scene. And while it’s apt to describe Sharrock as a purveyor of skronk, on Black Woman he’s less a splatterer of distortion and feedback and more a wrangler of wild, abstract note flurries.
But there’s also structure and even tangible melody in his playing, and even more importantly gospel feeling as heard in the opening title track with the singing of his wife Linda Sharrock (who blazes a trail here that’s similar to Patty Waters and early Yoko Ono, and is a force to be wonderfully reckoned with throughout). Additionally, “Blind Willy,” Black Woman’s most accessible track, nods to incomparable gospel-blues guitarist Blind Willie Johnson (there might be a hat-tip to Blind Willie McTell in there, too). Interestingly, “Blind Willy” gets nearer to raga (e.g. Sandy Bull) rather than imitate gospel-blues.
Sharrock assembled an impressive band for Black Woman. Along with Linda, there’s pianist Dave Burrell, bassist Norris Jones (aka Sirone), drummer Milford Graves (who played on Ayler’s Love Cry), and trumpeter Ted Daniel (I do believe making his debut on record). They work up a striking maelstrom while stretching out on “Peanut” and finale “Portrait of Linda in Three Colors, All Black” as the group’s sound remains amongst the more distinctive in the annals of free jazz.
Black Woman was produced by flautist Herbie Mann, which might seem surprising as Mann is primarily known as a soul jazz-Latin crossover-groove specialist, but Sharrock was a staple in his band, recording nine albums with the guy, and indeed the guitarist is the focus of the footage of Mann’s group in Summer of Soul, the superb documentary on the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival.
Given that It’s Not Up to Us, Byard Lancaster’s 1968 album for Vortex and his debut as a leader, opens with the flute-driven title track, one might assume it was a Mann production, as well. But no, ‘twas helmed by Joel Dorn, a prominent cog in the Atlantic label machine, and much of the contents resonate with Dorn’s production stamp.
Along with drummer Eric Grávátt (later of Weather Report), Sharrock is the highest profile member of the band convened for the album (Lancaster also played on Marzette Watts and Company), with bassist Jerome Hunter and conga player Kenny Speller rounding out the lineup. Along with the flute, Lancaster plays alto sax on a record with a wide stylistic reach.
It’s Not Up to Us is certainly informed by the New Thing, and in particular ”John’s Children” (explicitly situating the group as disciples of Coltrane), but also in a highly appealing take on “Over the Rainbow” with Lancaster on alto, and the closing track “Satan,” which is an extended showcase of Sharrock’s talents. But when flute is the horn of choice, the record takes on a very likeable almost folk-jazz feel (rather than the expected soul grooving that is the flute’s norm).
The folk-jazz angle is especially strong in the title cut and in the delightful “Mr. A.A.” (we’ll assume that stands for Albert Ayler), but “Last Summer” offers a more meditative experience, bringing Coltrane’s “Alabama” to mind. “Dogtown” is a cooker that suggests Roland Kirk as an influence. And the version of Erroll Garner’s “Misty,” with Lancaster on alto, is initially flush with exploratory romanticism before Sharrock kicks it into post-bop gear mid-way through.
It’s Not Up to Us is the least gripping of Superior Viaduct’s offerings overall, but it’s still a highly pleasurable affair and I can’t imagine a New Thing fan not wanting Lancaster’s debut close at hand.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
Albert Ayler, In Greenwich Village
A+
Sonny Sharrock, Black Woman
A
Byard Lancaster, It’s Not up to Us
A-
