We’re basically creating love letters to those who came before us.
- Adrian Younge co-founder of Jazz Is Dead
As I shared last week, Doug Carn’s Infant Eyes brought me to the Black Jazz label. After recording four albums with Black Jazz in the 1970s, he became a member of Earth, Wind & Fire and recorded on their first two albums. However, his success was later upstaged by his then-wife Jean Carn, who in 1986 as Jean Carne recorded the number one R&B hit Closer Than Close, produced by saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr. Since those early Earth, Wind & Fire albums, Doug Carn continued to record and perform intermittently, most recently as part of a hip-hop-influenced Jazz Is Dead project in 2020.
Jazz Is Dead is an interesting new record label and live music project based in Los Angeles, co-founded by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, one of the co-founders of A Tribe Called Quest. As part of the project, in the fall of 2019, they sponsored a very successful Black Jazz 50th Anniversary tour in Paris and Berlin:
Initially focused on live concerts, since 2020 Jazz Is Dead has been recording albums with jazz legends Roy Ayers, Brian Jackson, Gary Bartz Phil Ranelin, Wendell Harrison, and Black Jazz artists Doug and Jean Carn, and Henry Franklin. In February 2020, they also sponsored a Black Jazz All-Stars Sunday night at the Lodge Room in LA. From that performance, here’s Doug Carn’s Passion Dance:
As Jazz critic Brian Morton pointed out, the Black Jazz label’s overall impression “is of a 1970s inner city mystery thriller where urban angst is hinted at in odd meters and episodic dissonance and in which civil rights and solidarity vie for attention with blissful partying.” Well said, but above all the Black Jazz label is just consistently excellent and inspiring music.
On this week’s journey, we’ll explore some Black Jazz recordings released after 1971, starting in 1972 with Henry Franklin’s The Skipper. At the same time, we’ll look at the journeys of musicians Gene Russell invited to his recordings.
The Skipper is not my favorite of Franklin’s two Black Jazz releases - we’ll look at The Skipper At Home a little further downstream. However, from The Skipper, I do like Theme For Jojo. I send this out to J-tho and Lyn, who I’m sure are at Point Dume on Dawn Patrol:
After the introduction, I find this song sounds a lot like Eddie Harris’ Fragmentary Apparitions from his outstanding Excursions album. Fragmentary Apparitions was recorded on January 8, 1973, and released months after this Franklin album - I wonder if Theme for Jojo influenced Harris’ composition. Multi-instrumentalist Charles Owens lays down adventurous solos on both Franklin’s albums.
Incidentally, Owens performed on John Mayall’s Moving On, a July 10, 1972, live recording from LA’s Whiskey A Go Go. Back in high school, when I was pretty much just a blues guy, this is one of the first Jazz-influenced albums I ever heard:
You can see Owens here on the back cover right in the center - looking fresh out of high school:
Listen to Owens’ crazy soprano solo on Things Go Wrong:
The track also offers a nice solo by the “Fabulous Blue Mitchell”. I liked his playing on this and John Mayall’s Jazz Blues Fusion albums a good twenty years before I knew he was a jazz legend. You can read more about him here:
Interestingly, nearly a year earlier, on July 1, 1971, with Ernie Watts and Fred Jackson, Owens recorded on Bobby Hutcherson’s Head On, released by Blue Note later that year.
Reggie Johnson played bass on this one too. He would go on to record for Black Jazz on Coral Keys and Spring Rain, both featured on last week’s journey. Anyway, let’s get back on track….
In 1972, The Awakening released their first Black Jazz album: Hear, Sense and Feel. They were a formidable group, featuring some AACM members, namely Ari Brown, Reggie Willis, and Frank Gordon. I like Ari Brown’s spirited playing on When Will It Ever End, which has an Art Ensemble of Chicago feel to it (without the keyboard, of course):
Ari Brown, who plays saxophones and flute on the album, had met Roscoe Mitchell while at Wilson Junior College in Chicago and joined the AACM. Years later, he would record a nice live album with Don Moye at the Progressive Arts Center in Chicago.
Bassist Reggie Willis would go on to record on Muhal Richard Abrams’ 1975 Things To Come From Those Now Gone on Chicago’s Delmark label:
Trumpet player Frank Gordon studied music theory and composition at Chicago’s Roosevelt University and Governor State University before joining the AACM. He would go on to perform on Abrams’ awesome The Hearinga Suite, released in 1989 on Blank Saint.
In 2005, Gordon moved to Okinawa to teach jazz music at the Osaka School of Music. I enjoy Gordon’s playing on Glory To The Sun from The Awakening’s second Black Jazz release, the 1973 Mirage. Do yourself a favor and sit down at sunset and 3:30 minutes before the sun sets on the horizon, start playing this track….
In 1973, Walter Bishop, Jr. released his second Black Jazz album, Keeper of My Soul.
This is a nice swinging session with congas and vibes - by now you’ll know I’m a sucker for the vibes. From the album, here is the title track:
I like the flute work by Ronnie Laws, the younger brother of Hubert Laws. After recording with Black Jazz, Ronnie Laws joined Earth, Wind & Fire where he played saxophone and flute on their third studio album: Last Days and Time. After 18 months of working with Earth, Wind & Fire, he decided to become a solo artist and signed with Blue Note. He recorded three successful albums with them and his final was certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of over 500,000 copies.
In 1974, Henry Franklin released probably my favorite all-around Black Jazz album, The Skipper At Home. From the first bass riff on the first track Blue Lights, this album hits on all cylinders, with Franklin’s heavy bass always on top. Charles Owens is right in there again too. I sure would like to know the story behind this cover photo:
From the album, here is the wonderful Soft Spirit:
This is such a great song. The thoughtful soloing throughout never ceases to calm my soul.
Here’s one more for the road. In 1975, Cleveland Eaton released Plenty Good Eaton, the last Black Jazz release. Before recording with them, Eaton had built an impressive ten-year body of work in the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Eaton grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and studied under one of America’s most well-known and respected jazz music educators John T. “Fess” Whatley, who also mentored Erskine Hawkins and Sun Ra. After recording with the Black Jazz label, Eaton would go on to join the Count Basie Orchestra.
From that album, here is the funky All Your Love, All Day, All Night:
Although the Black Jazz label ended in 1975 with this album, the label would greatly influence the late 1980s and early 1990s jazz-based hip-hop and rare groove/acid jazz scene. It’s good to see a much-deserved popular resurgence in the label and musicians with the Jazz Is Dead project.
It’s worth repeating how freelance writer Nate Patrin summed up 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.”
It’s difficult in two weeks to cover all the consistently excellent recordings Gene Russell produced for his Black Jazz label. Perhaps better than any other label of that time, Black Jazz succeeded in creating a unique synthesis of jazz and funk. Many of the recordings were ahead of their time and still sound fresh today.
Next week on that Big River called Jazz, we’ll leave the West Coast, portage our canoe to France, and dig our paddles in to explore the waters of the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s exile in Paris.
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Until then, keep on walking….