Out Front

Out Front is a jazz record from March 1961 by Booker Little and his quartet featuring Max Roach (drums). Also on the album are Eric Dolphy (alto sax, bass clarinet, flute) Art Davis (bass), Ron Carter (bass), Don Friedman (piano), and Julian Preister (trombone). I wanted to write about this album because its a terrific record, very polished for 1961. I was curious to hear it because it featured Eric Dolphy (everyone knows the live Dolphy record with Booker Little at the Five Spot) and Max Roach on the same album, something I had not heard before. And it was totally worth it.

Booker Little was only 23 and died later that year in 1961. These seven tunes are worthy enough to be replayed and preserved by a modern jazz group, that's how good it is. Eric Dolphy's playing isn't as free as it usually is here. In fact, most of what you hear here sounds like arrangements complete with piano, bass, trumpet, trombone, alto sax, flute, bass clarinet, and drums. Its quite a full sound. Not quite big band but not quite quartet either. It reminds me of something Mingus would record although not as technical. In fact, I would say that although this music is challenging for the soloists, the music is much more emotive than technical. There's humanity to this jazz, quite a lot of it. This element is sorely missing in today's modern straight ahead and sometimes free-jazz scenes. Its blues even though there's complicated arrangements.

The music has room to breathe. There's a sense of blues to all the pieces although a lot of the heads sound like bebop riffs from the 50's. I want to say it sounds orchestral as well. They are definitely playing to well organized charts and doing a spectacular job laying down the groove and getting the right tones. 

With song titles like We Speak, Strength and Sanity, Quiet Please, Moods in Free Time, Man of Words, Hazy Hues, and A New Day you would think this is either a free jazz album or some kind of progressive jazz record. It is quite a progressive jazz album but not free jazz. However, it was definitely new and innovative in 1961, that's for sure.

The solos here are spectacular. Dolphy's style is recognizable as always. Instead of going too far outside the changes, instead here he plays to the song's tonality, meaning he doesn't go off into the realms of the netherworld like on some of his own records. There's a feeling of respectability to the composer and he stuck to the song. The solos aren't long but are rewarding. This is about tunes, not so much about blowing, like the 50's bebop records. Although there is definitely a bebop influence here in the playing, especially the drums, I would say that Booker Little is also trying to find his own sound, style, vernacular if you will. I would say he achieves this with his sounds.

I found this CD on the library servers and ordered it. It was so good I downloaded it onto my computer. Its a shame Booker Little died so young, he would've gone on to have a great career in jazz. In a lot of ways I see how this sort of music inspired the modern jazz crowd of today. In fact, a lot of modern straight ahead jazz today sounds much like this music. There's detailed, written out arrangements, soloists, and they try to put as much humanity into the music as possible, no matter how technical the music is.

Its damn good!

Charles Mingus Beneath the Underdog

I finished this book a while ago and I wanted to record some of my thoughts on the book. Its an autobiographical (with some fiction thrown in, probably a lot) work written by Mingus himself and Alfred Knopf. Charles Mingus is a famous jazz musician, a bass player who is known as a composer and working with Eric Dolphy. I know of him more through Dolphy than his own compositions but his works have great artistic merit and he will not be forgotten because of this.

The one thing to note is that although this book is about a jazz musician most of the book has nothing to do with music at all. Rather, its more like poetry through life itself. We start with a young baby Mingus who's mother is fearful for his life because he'd been dropped on his head. Great opener, "I almost died as a baby."

The book goes on to display Mingus' young life as a youth facing off against bullies, learning to fight and stand up for himself, and most importantly finding love and woman. Oh, yes this guy was a womanizer. To the point that as an adult he was pimping for a while. But he had other and more musical desires. The parts about music mostly focused on the fact that although he was acclaimed as a good composer and had found fame, he was still quite penniless at times. Mingus described "what it feels like to be an artist – actually be it, in a world that is not only trying to stop you being an artist but has tried to stop you being human in the first place." (wiki/Beneath the Underdog)

A stand out story was this part where Mingus is up in Mexico and he fucks twenty Mexican girls within two hours. Definitely fake but still a cool story. The human body definitely can't handle that but the thought of it is sort of interesting. This book had tons of sex scenes in it. It was probably just as bad as Fifty Shades of Grey, except probably worse. There was some really raunchy sexual stuff in the book, things they don't even do in porn because it would be construed unacceptable. These parts of the book, although vulgar to a certain degree, has a certain poetic beauty to it. Is sex really all these things and more? For Mingus sex was of utmost importance. And not just the act of fucking. Its the act of making love that was important. I think that was the best thing I learned from these parts of the book.

The women in Mingus' life were numerous. At one point he was living with two chicks who were devoted to him. He pimped them for a while but eventually quit to focus on music. You get the sense that for him its not about one woman, but an infinite number. And all of them could important to you, not just a fuck. This idea was quite new to me although I've heard of men marrying multiple women in Islam so its nothing new. Interesting to see it in the context of a jazz musician.

Mingus' personality shines through well in this book. He is a man of complexity. He could be mean, angry, racist, gentle, forgiving, and loving all at the same time. Although the book focuses more on his anger and troubled issues I like to think of Mingus as a troubled man who found himself (intellect, art, musicality, and social ingenuity) through music.

If anything I found out about what jazz musicians are really like, not just some white guy's (critics) thoughts on them. And for that it is invaluable. 

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