Cosmic Jazz celebrates the heritage of Strata-East Records and checks out a bunch of new releases. Listen to the music on Mixcloud and follow up our notes and links below. And our apologies for the audible background chat about the music from Derek and Neil on two tunes – Mizu (The Circling Sun) and Lipwash (Fellow Creatures) – we hope it doesn’t spoil your enjoyment of this excellent music!
Strata-East was founded by trumpeter Charles Tolliver and pianist Stanley Cowell in Brooklyn in 1971. By the end of the decade, the label had released 58 albums of near-uniform artistic excellence – a remarkable achievement for an independent company run on a shoestring by two musicians with no previous business experience. The label operated on the principle that the artists owned all of their output, with Strata-East taking only a small commission to keep things going. In 1974, their balance sheet was boosted by the success of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson’s excellent Winter In America album which included the breakout single The Bottle. The tune went on to become a huge hit – and it’s still a club favourite today. Strata-East’s legacy still resonates in the work of musicians such as Shabaka Hutchings, Kamasi Washington, Idris Ackamoor and Pharoah Sanders – who was briefly a Strata-East artist and one of the movement’s founding fathers. The label became dormant during the 1980s with some titles being reissued by Pure Pleasure in recent years – but now comes a full reissue programme, thanks to a new partnership between Strata-East and the Mack Avenue label. The complete reissue programme begins with a download sampler of 33 tracks available here on Bandcamp and the revived Strata-East website. Reissues will be on vinyl, CD and download with lots of the downloads already available here.
- Billy Harper – Sir Galahad from Capra Black
Now this should be one of your top choices from the new reissue programme. Now 82 years old, tenor saxophonist Harper is much less well known that he should be. He’s got a muscular tone on the horn and, while he frequently draws on his blues and gospel roots, there’s a free jazz sense of complex harmonies and Henderson-like breadth of out-there sounds too. In the early ’60s, Harper studied jazz at North Texas State University, where he became (at that time) the only African-American member of the school’s prestigious One O’Clock Lab Band. Inevitably, he moved to New York where he began a long-lasting association with bandleader/arranger Gil Evans. His 1975 album Black Saint was the first recording issued by the label of the same name and his 1979 live in Europe album launched the Soul Note label. Capra Black was his debut record and is a gem. Harper is accompanied by a septet which includes trombonists Julian Priester and Dick Griffin, ex-Coltrane bassist Reggie Workman and drummers Billy Cobham and Warren Smith (augmented on occasion by Elvin Jones). The closing Cry Of Hunger is dedicated to the black-consciousness movement’s demands for social change and is one of the many highlights of this superb record.
2. Clifford Jordan – John Coltrane from Glass Bead Games
Clifford Jordan’s two volumes of sessions under the title Glass Bead Games have long been heralded as some of the most important work of his career. Neil bought the Japanese P-Vine 2LP reissue a few years ago but this essential album will certainly be one of the highlights of the full Strata-East reissue programme. The record features pianist Stanley Cowell, bassist Bill Lee (father of film director Spike Lee), and drummer Billy Higgins. Lee’s composition, John Coltrane is perhaps the best known and includes a vocal chant by Jordan, Higgins and Lee that’s almost as memorable as Coltrane’s own one for A Love Supreme. There are actually two separate quartets on the record, with the second one featuring Cedar Walton on piano and Sam Jones on bass. The complete 2LP record is one of Strata-East’s masterpiece records and deserves to be in any jazz collection.
3. Stanley Cowell – Equipoise from Musa: Ancestral Streams
An unusual record in the Strata-East pantheon, Musa: Ancestral Streams is a solo piano set that’s nonetheless full of the spiritual soulfulness that characterises so many of the label’s records. Equipoise went on to be recorded in many other versions – including ones by Cowell himself. It’s a beautifully delicate tune which lends itself to reinterpretation – as Max Roach (on the classic Members, Don’t Get Weary), Jack DeJohnette, Roy Haynes and Jerry Gonzales discovered. But how about this take by LA collective Build a Ark… This is another essential Strata-East record that should be in your collection and, luckily for you, this one is already available here in all formats.
In the 1970s, the three Heath brothers, Jimmy on saxes, Percy on bass and younger sibling Albert on drums formed a band with Stanley Cowell on piano. Marchin’ On (1975) was their first record and it’s still one of the strongest. The brothers work together superbly, unsurprisingly. There is a lot of great playing from all four, and especially from Jimmy Heath who is as undemonstratively masterful on flutes as he is on saxes. Equally important, he was an unusually gifted composer, as here, with the four part Smiling Billy Suite which takes up the whole of the second side. Part 2 has been sampled by artists like Dr. Dre, Q-Tip/Nas, Amy Winehouse, The Beatnuts and more. Why? Because it’s one of the most infectious grooves you’ll come across on a Strata-East record, thanks to that combination of the kalimba (or thumb piano) and bass.
5. The Circling Sun – Mizu from Orbits
Orbits, the second LP from New Zealand/Aotearoa group The Circling Sun, channels the cosmic energy of 1970s spiritual jazz, filtered through synths, layered percussion, and an eight piece choir of Maori and Pacific Island singers. They’re part of a very healthy Auckland jazz scene and this new album (which will be out next month) references an even broader palette than their first record, Spirits, which we also featured on CJ. The Circling Sun are a collective and the personnel on this album includes Cameron Allen on tenor and alto saxes, John Bell on cornet & tenor horn, Guy Harrison on synths, Julien Dyne on drums and percussion – along with a whole bunch of people on horns.
6. Fellow Creatures – Lipwash from We Must Fight
Fellow Creatures is the first new venture for bassist Jasper Høiby since his formation of Phronesis in 2005 and the new Edition release We Must Fight reimagines some of his tunes from that first Phronesis group. There are new arrangement of several Phronesis tunes by saxophonist, composer and arranger, Alex Hitchcock. Featuring a richly textured group including oud player Saied Silbak, flautist Ketija Ringa Karahona, pianist Xavi Torres, and drummer Luca Caruso, bringing voices from London, Palestine, and Spain to join Høiby’s Norwegian background. We Must Fight is an album that recognises the importance of the collective voice and is a kind of musical call to action. The Mojo review notes that Hoiby fashions his pieces so the lines between freedom and form are beautifully blurred, the music flows as a tumultuous organic whole – everything belongs, nothing is forced. Take a listen and see what you think.
7. Peter Johnstone – Resistance is Futile from Resistance is Futile
This a great new jazz release from Scotland – and it fully deserves a wider audience. Featuring New York-based vibes virtuoso Joe Locke, leading saxophonist Tommy Smith and Johnstone’s Scottish National Jazz Orchestra rhythm section colleague, Alyn Cosker on drums, the quartet formed in 2023. Pianist and Hammond B3 player Peter Johnstone has toured internationally with vocalist Kurt Elling and Vienna-based American saxophonist Andy Middleton and has also worked with guitarists Jim Mullen, Rob Luft and Nigel Price as well as appearing extensively with the SNJO. I wanted to give Joe, Tommy and Alyn music that they would find interesting to play and that would allow them to open up and express themselves within each piece’s form, says Johnstone. The album opens with the lively title track but there’s a wide range in the eight original Johnstone compositions and this is an album we shall return to in future shows. Johnstone noted that I could hear organ and vibes in my imagination as soon as Joe agreed to be in the band. There aren’t too many examples of that instrumental combination that I can think of but the recordings Bobby Hutcherson did with Joey DeFrancesco really excited me and the idea of these instruments combined with the musical personalities involved in the quartet was inspiring. Listen to You from the 2014 Blue Note release Enjoy the View and you’ll see what he means.
8. Orbital Ensemble – Espelho do Sol from Orbital
Another brand new album, this time headed up by multi-instrumentalist Felipe Sena, a Brazilian-Canadian whose upbringing across the two countries has inspired a jazz album rooted in Brazilian rhythms with a touch of psychedelia. Sena grew up in São Paulo and started playing the guitar at the age of 10 before playing in bands in the underground punk scene but after moving to Toronto, he focused back on Brazilian music. Big influences were my parents, says Sena. We’d do road trips listening to Clube da Esquina and Som Imaginário. My dad’s classic records were from the 70s and it continues to be some of my favourite stuff and a great foundation to explore more things. We think that’s a pretty good place to start.
9. Charles Lloyd/Jason Moran – God Only Knows from Hagar’s Song
Hagar’s Song comes from saxophonist Charles Lloyd’s long tenure with ECM Records but unusually it features more standards than Lloyd originals. He’s joined by Jason Moran, who’s been a key part of Lloyd’s quartet since 2007. The title piece is a five-part suite dedicated to the memory of Lloyd’s great-great grandmother, who spent most of her life as a slave. Its various sections reflect the harshness of that life, as well as moments of hope and determination. Lloyd has always celebrated his deep love of jazz and pop traditions, and there are signs of this everywhere here. Billy Strayhorn’s Pretty Girl and Gershwin’s Bess You Is My Woman Now are good examples. We’ve chosen the closing track, a very delicate reading of the late Brian Wilson’s God Only Knows – and it’s just beautiful. Lloyd quotes the refrain and then takes the lyric line, perhaps reflecting on his own time touring with the Beach Boys in the 1960s. Lloyd and Moran have an an almost symbiotic relationship here and on much of their music together – most notably on one of Neil and Derek’s favourite pieces of jazz, the live version of Booker’s Garden from the ECM album Rabo de Nube.
Neil is listening to…
- Phillip Glass – Akhnaten: Prelude, Refrain – Verse 1, Verse 2
- EST with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra – Seven Days of Falling
- Gil Scott Heron – The Bottle (12in)
- Pharoah Sanders – Prince of Peace
- James Brandon Lewis Quartet – Ware