Black Jazz, Part 1

So we beat on, boats against the current....

The jazz, R&B and spoken word hybrids from decades ago have clear connections to jazz, R&B, and hip hop/spoken word today. The times that Black Jazz records have been sampled have also been a part of its legacy.

- Aaron Cohen, author of Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power

The first song from the Black Jazz label I ever heard was Infant Eyes, on Doug Carn’s 1971 album of the same name. It was the label’s third release. I first heard Infant Eyes one night when I was driving around Manhattan listening to jazz on the radio. In his recent interview with Jeff Slate, something Bob Dylan said helps me recall that moment:

When you first hear a song, it might be related to what time of day you hear it. Maybe at daybreak - at dawn with the sun in your face - it would probably stay with you longer if you heard it at dusk. Or maybe, if you first hear it at sunset, it would probably mean something different, than if you heard it first at 2 in the afternoon. Or maybe you hear something in the dead of night, in the darkness, with night eyes.

I take that back, the first time I heard Infant Eyes was in the dead of night, in the darkness, with night eyes. It made an immediate impact. For years, I kept my eyes open for it at the usual record stores, but Black Jazz albums back then were impossible to find. When a late 1990s reissue came out, I was finally able to find one.

The Black Jazz label was started in 1971 in Oakland, California by Jazz pianist Gene Russell and composer, record and television producer, audio pioneer, and music industry veteran, Dick Schory. Russell rounded up the musicians and Schory provided the financing and record distribution. Also in 1971, the Rolling Stones released Brown Sugar, George Harrison organized the Concert for Bangladesh in New York City, and the first Glastonbury Festival was held in the UK - it was the start of some rough times for jazz. By 1972, Steely Dan sang, “If you live in this world, you’re feeling the change of the guard.” And by 1973, when Sun Ra proclaimed “Space is the place”, rock was really the place - or more likely the dark side of the moon.

So I give Gene Russell a lot of credit for starting the label. It was an honorable vision.

In 1969, on the Decca label, Gene Russell recorded his first album as a leader, Up and Away:

It’s a looooong way from that to New Direction, his first Black Jazz release:

The cover alone shows the direction his musical vision was headed. It was a risky endeavor, with Jazz interest and sales declining. But undeterred, Russell beat on against the current. Speaking of Schory, I sure would like to know the story behind how they hooked up.

In 1969, Schory left RCA Victor and started his own record label, Ovation, where he produced over 300 albums featuring such artists as drummer Joe Morello, jazz flutist Paul Horn, the Count Basie Orchestra, and even a series of hit country music singles and albums by The Kendalls. He recalled, “The Ovation label was formed based on my development of quadraphonic sound with Jim Cunningham, an engineer in Chicago. At RCA, I had developed two stereo projects: Stereo Action and then Dynagroove. Both series enjoyed good consumer sales.” He brought this technical expertise to the Black Jazz label - all the releases were recorded in quadraphonic sound, which for a while was all the rage:

"Have you heard the new hi-fi's with the quadraphonic sound? They're really the best for listening to jazz. It sounds like, ‘Skeedle-dee-deep-do-bop-do-bop, scoop-doop, sly-gar, flarga-marga, smee-boo.’”

Their initial idea was to put into the declining jazz market music that reflected the political and spiritual urgencies of the time. Perhaps built around a limited stable of acts, they put out consistently significant recordings by excellent musicians who weren’t catching the eyes or ears of the majors. That stable included an interesting mix of jazz newcomers and veterans: multi-instrumentalists Harold Vick, Owen Marshall, Charles Owens, Ronnie Laws, and René McLean, son of Jackie; drummers Idris Muhammad, later resident of CTI, Ndugu Leon Chancler, Alphonse Mouzon, before his Weather Report days, and Tony Williams, who played congas on Russell’s first release; bassist Cleveland Eaton, who played with Lou Rawls and then Count Basie’s Orchestra; trumpeters Charles Tolliver and Woody Shaw, who was in California at the time; pianist Kirk Lightsey; and of course Doug and Jean Carn. Bottom line - these cats could play.

Although Black Jazz only lasted five years, it put out several high-quality albums that have withstood the test of time. I find their first six albums, all released in 1971, some of their best sessions. This week, we’ll take a look at what I call the “Black Jazz six-pack”.

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Gene Russell kicked off his new Black Jazz label with his own New Direction, with Henry Franklin on bass, Steve Clover on drums, and Tony Williams on the congas for two tracks. Right from this first release, the label came out from the bell swinging - and swinging hard.

From that album, here is Black Orchid:

The album has the feel of a Three Sounds record. In fact, Henry Franklin recorded with them on a couple of Blue Note albums in 1969. Incidentally, Franklin’s current collaboration is called 3 More Sounds, recorded on his own Skipper Productions label.

The second release is Coral Keys by pianist Walter Bishop, Jr., son of Walter Bishop, Sr., a famous drummer and composer from the Sugar Hill district of Harlem, whose song Swing, Brother, Swing was recorded by Billie Holiday with Count Basie, among other performers. Side A of Coral Keys is a standard quartet with Harold Vick on flute and saxophones and Idris Muhammad on drums, and Side B is a quintet with Woody Shaw added on trumpet. This is solid jazz and some of Vick’s most spirited playing.

While New Direction and Coral Keys are pretty straightforward albums, the third release Infant Eyes is a different story.

This is a spiritual album. With a more avant-garde and post-bop sound, the album appeals to me. The title track has Jean Carn singing the lyrics Doug Carn wrote to Wayne Shorter’s Infant Eyes:

When Doug Carn recorded the material for Infant Eyes, in his words, “I thought we were creating a new set of standards.” He then shopped the demo to all the big labels like Blue Note, Impulse!, and Columbia, but no one was interested. However, when Gene Russell heard the demo, he released it instantly. His instincts were right on.

The fourth release, Rudolph Johnson’s Spring Rain, is a pretty straight-ahead quartet, with some strong tenor solos by Johnson, sounding a lot like Eddie Harris to me. Johnson honed his skills as a member of organist Jimmy McGriff's hard-swinging group of the early 1960s before establishing himself on the West Coast. Johnson was joined on piano by John Barnes, who would go on to work with a string of R&B superstars including Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and Michael Jackson - Barnes was the keyboardist on Jackson’s Bad. Johnson recorded a second album with Black Jazz in 1973 and then continued to lead his own groups for the next twenty years but stayed primarily active touring with the Ray Charles Big Band.

The fifth release is a stone-cold classic. Shawn-Neeq is Calvin Key’s debut as a leader, and it hits the mark.

As much as I like Key’s playing on the album, I really like Owen Marshall's contributions on flute. Check him out on the title track:

After his Black Jazz releases, Keys also joined the Ray Charles Big Band and later relocated back to the Bay Area, where he remains today a staple in the music and education community.

Owen Marshall is an interesting cat. In 1975, after his recordings with Black Jazz, he recorded for his private label Aditi the classic Captain Puff in the Naked Truth at the Compton Community College in LA:

On this Sun-Ra-inspired album, as Captain Puff of the spaceship Naked Truth, Marshall takes us on a musical journey to the plant Funk. No lie. And when he says “in the Naked Truth”, he means it - he’s buck naked in all three photos on the back of the album:

Perhaps more spacey than funky, this is a fine album. To get the sounds he wanted, he created his own instruments: Tube-A-Phone; Hose-A-Phone; Ply-Tar; and Boonet. You tell me…. In his own words, he created them to “tap the very depths of his creative resources…to make music fun to play, and entertaining to listen to.” I can dig that.

From the album here is Casa Del Soul. Turn up the bass for Danny Whatley’s licks - lord have mercy. Whatever happened to him….

Interestingly, although he remains relatively unknown now, Marshall was not unknown in the jazz community. Earlier in his career, he had written and arranged tracks for Lee Morgan’s 1957 Blue Note album Lee Morgan Sextet Vol. 2.

But let’s get back on track….

It was through Rudolph Johnson that keyboardist Chester Thompson found Black Jazz. One of Thompson’s first gigs was playing in Johnson’s trio in 1969. Powerhouse is Thompson’s debut as a leader and he took the opportunity to include his old friend Johnson on tenor. Powerhouse was the sixth and final 1971 Black Jazz release.

From the album, here is Power House:

Interestingly, this song also reminds me of Eddie Harris, in particular, Freedom Jazz Dance from his 1966 The In Sound album. I also really like Al Hall’s trombone work on this mix.

In 1973, Thompson went on to play keyboards with Tower or Power for ten years, and then, from 1982 until 2009, played in Santana’s band. He is still touring and is a true powerhouse!

Here’s one more for the road. Doug Carn’s Infant Eyes is perhaps best known for his lyrics to Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane songs sung by his wife Jean. But I find the instrumentals, and Henry Franklin’s bass work, equally compelling. Like this one, Doug Carn’s original Moon Child:

Nate Patrin summed up well the legacy of the Black Jazz label, “As a cultural statement, Black Jazz was both resounding and necessary: Russell’s involvement made it the first black-owned jazz label in 50 years, and its focus on promoting a wealth and breadth of black-originated jazz expression promoted an independent autonomy at a time when jazz crossover and popular decline in the face of rock and r&b was contentious.” For that, Russell deserves a ton of credit. Unfortunately, the beautiful story of Black Jazz Records was to end abruptly with the bankruptcy of the label in 1981.

In 2012, Snow Dog Records acquired the licensing to Black Jazz Records and started reissuing the albums as its first project. Since then, more reissues have been happening, and the albums can now be easily and cheaply found.

So it’s nice to see Gene Russell’s label back in the news and making the big comeback it deserves.

Next week on that Big River called Jazz, we’ll dig our paddles in to explore the waters of some of the post-1971 Black Jazz albums.

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Until then, keep on walking….