Customer Reviews

Exploration

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4 star:		(3)
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First, a few facts about this session. The group listed would actually be a nonet comprising of Tim Hagans on trumpet, John Clark on French horn, Gary Bartz on alto sax, Billy Harper on tenor, Gary Smulyan on baritone, Ray Drummond on bass, Andrew Cyrille on drums, Dave Woodley on trombone and Grachan Moncur III on the trombone.

For some reason, the CD sleeve insists that it is an octet for which I have no explanation other than the general degradation of math skills in this country (feel free to imagine an old curmudgeonly gentleman shaking his cane as you read that).

The main point though is that this session is the brainchild of, was produced by, the arrangements were done by and the music conducted by Mark Masters. I think that is important as will come clear. All of the songs are from the Blue Note LPs or New Africa with one song that GM3 wrote earlier.

But first my suggestion. This CD is not the place to start for those who are new to the music of Mr. Moncur III. Leave this page of Amazonia immediately and go to the listings for New Africa, Some Other Stuff, Evolution or, best of all, the Mosaic box set of the Blue Note recordings.

What follows is personal opinion. GM3's recordings that came out in the sixties were a unique body of work. Like some of Jackie McLean's work in the mid-sixties, Moncur's music suggested an inclusive middle ground between the hard bop mainstream of the time and the emerging free jazz and avant garde alternatives. As such, Moncur's music is both exploratory and wide-open to the music of others. Part of what made people like McLean and Moncur so wonderful at that time was the sense that I had that it would appeal to both Marion Brown and Sonny Stitt. Moncur was creating a musical vocabulary that everybody could use.

Those early recordings remain unchallenged. They have a muscular beauty that the present CD lacks. A lot of that has to do with the size of the group and the arrangements. Everything is very well done but it only occasionally sounds like Moncur to me in the arrangements.

However, please note that it is evident that GM3 himself seems to have really appreciated the arrangements by Masters and to have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

The solo work by all is quite good. It is nice to hear Moncur's work being explored by Harper, Bartz and Smulyan. Hagan (again with the personal opinions!)is technically superb but I rarely connect with his work. As for Moncur, if anything, his solo voice is as terse as ever and driven by his own melodic logic.

So if you own the other CDs, by all means pick this one up. Moncur's oeuvre is not large but it is very worthy and it is very sweet to (somewhat) hear his vision again after all these years. I only hope that this CD leads to one of new material with his own arrangements. Then the curmudgeon will be dancing.

It's been far too long since we've heard from Grachan Moncur. For his first album as a leader in nearly 3 decades Moncur revisits his compositions of the 60's with an all-star lineup, including Billy Harper, Gary Bartz, Andrew Cyrille, Ray Drummond and Tim Hagans. Mark Masters' arrangements are swinging and tight and there's passionate playing all around. One of the top three or four albums of the year, in my opinion.

I first heard Grachan Moncur's playing with the Jazztet (Benny Golson and Art Farmer) on a Verve vault release called "Here and Now" (1962) which was a nice mainstream jazz cd. That album introduced Grachan's composition "Sonny's back" which is reprised here. Then he hooked up with Jackie Mclean and new seventeen year old drumming phenomenon Anthony Williams (who Jackie discovered as part of the house rhythm section at a Boston club). The album is a jazz classic called "One step beyond", it contained some unique compositions by Grachan and adventurous playing from everyone. The record had avant-garde leanings but remained accessible. After "One step beyond" Grachan recorded as a leader again with Jackie Mclean. He did a few more records for Blue note under his own name or Jackie's and then largely dedicated himself to jazz education, recording sporadically. What a delight it was to discover Grachan had returned in fine form with this 2004 "Exploration" cd containing octet revisitations of his 1960's work along with more recent compositions- versions which I find preferable to the originals. Gary Bartz does some great playing on this and Grachan sounds as good as ever. The octet arrangements by Mark Masters and a more dynamic, modern sound (engineered by Dave Kowalski) really bring these pieces to life in a new way- "Love and Hate" is especially moving (but I am certainly not taking anything away from the original version on Mclean's "Destination Out". Grachans reappearence parallels another 1960's Blue note artist- Andrew Hill- who also returned with some strong work around the same time. Both Grachun's "Exploration" and Andrew Hill's "A Beautiful Day" are jazz of a high order and highly recommended.

I don't know if it's correct to call this New York City jazz but I've often heard of a similar style with some of these players called so. Given that, this CD is one of the best of the genre, which is not surprising given the all-star cast. Of course, that doesn't always work but the arrangements here are excellent and there is an underlying joy that shines through all the songs.

all of the selections were written by moncur. two of them appeared back in the sixties on albums by archie shepp. moncur appeared on frankenstein on shepp's the way ahead. he was absent on sonny's back on shepp's yasmina, featuring archie shepp and hank mobley. both pieces are rearranged for orchestra on exploration and play time is a lot shorter, cut down to under ten minutes.

it's a treat hearing these tunes in an orchestral format.

always a pleasure hearing gary bartz.