Customer Reviews

Let Freedom Ring

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Being that I'm a huge fan of Jackie McLean's straight-ahead hard bop sessions, I didn't think I would like this session when I picked it up. After popping this disc into my cd player when I got home, I could tell from the first few seconds of "Melody for Melonae" that I couldn't have been more wrong. This is definitely one of McLean's best, which says a lot since his discography is so vast. After hearing this session, you will probably wonder why the quartet on the four tracks (McLean, Walter Davis, Jr. on piano, Herbie Lewis on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums) did not become a working group because they work so well together! All four tracks on this masterpiece are gems and there's not one I favor over the others. They are all different and good in their own way. Three of the four tunes ("Melody for Melonae", "Rene", and "Omega") are originals written by Jackie. Interestingly enough, those three tunes are all written about members of McLean's family ("Melody for Melonae" is about his daughter, "Rene" is about his son, and "Omega is about his mother. That can probably explain why his playing seems to be filled with such emotion during the duration of these tracks. "I'll Keep Loving You", the other track on this cd, is a rarely-done Bud Powell ballad. All of those people who consider McLean to be too rough of an alto player will change their minds immediately after hearing the coda on this track. His playing is so tender that it kills me every time I hear it! All four of the members of this ensemble are highlighted throughout, but this is definitely McLean's show and is one of the most personal albums he ever produced. So if you're a McLean fan, a fan of Coltrane, Shorter, or Coleman, or just dig jazz with feeling, then order this gem immediately!

This album represents Jackie McLean's attempt to assimilate the "new thing" into his music. It's not a free jazz album by any means but it does escape the constricting confines of changes-based bop playing for a more pared-down kind of playing. It's basically a very personal hybrid of modal jazz & the more intuitive, directly emotional playing of Ornette Coleman. The compositions are all connected to people in McLean's life: "Melody for Melonae" & "Rene" concern his children, "Omega" is the middle name of his mother, & "I'll Keep Loving You" is a ballad by Bud Powell, whom McLean had worked with & who was in the middle of his final decline which led to his death a few years later. McLean's tone & playing have never been better caught on tape: the enormous biting sound with its idiosyncratic pitching, the hard-swinging, buttonholing solo lines, occasionally decorated with freak whistle notes; the ability to sustain extremely long solos without a falling-off of invention or power; the extraordinary out-of-tempo setpieces. Indeed, the completely out-of-tempo "I'll Keep Loving You" actually anticipates the kind of force Albert Ayler would put into a ballad, years before Ayler cut his first ESP disc. The other three tracks are (once the heads are stated) uptempo & mostly upbeat in feel, with "Rene" a particularly joyous performance.

The other reason to get this disc is the late Billy Higgins--this is possibly the best performance of his I've heard on disc, & perhaps not even on the classic Ornette Coleman sides does he play as well as this. -- Herbie Lewis is very good on bass, not a player I've encountered elsewhere. Walter Davis is usually thought of as a mainstream bop pianist of the 2nd rank; he plays very well here, though is perhaps slightly superfluous. (McLean even in his most adventurous mode usually liked to keep the piano, which gives his music a more grounded feel than Coleman's had, or Coltrane's for that matter [Tyner usually comped only minimally or laid out during Coltrane's extended solos].)

A marvellous album, which belongs in any serious collection of postwar jazz.

Trying to pigeonhole this music is not an easy task, and maybe it is not necessary. Mclean grew up listening to Parker, and always retains some bebop in his playing. But, later influences, of Mingus and then Ornette Coleman, have encouraged him to find his own style. So he ventured on new territories and made some good music in the process.
This is not free jazz, because rhythmically Mclean is closer to bebop and hard bop, and because of Walter Davis' presence on the piano. What this music IS, is very expressive, original, and rich. Mclean is not a genious improvisor on the level of Coleman, Dolphy or Parker. But he has a lot to say, and a very attracrive way of saying it.
The four tracks are all interesting, and I especially like the first and the last. Sometimes it is obvious that Mclean goes into the high pitched shrieks involuntarily, as a result of his powerful blowing, but chooses to stay with them and add them as legitimate sounds.
It is interesting to note that the name of the cd is taken from the "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King, which was made a full year after the music was recorded. Since it is unlikely that King borrowed from Mclean, I suppose the album was named and released a long while after it was recorded.

This was a very important album for Mr. McLean, as it was his first whole-hearted attempt to come to terms with the "freedom" that was emerging in jazz at the time. However eventhough Jackie admired some of the free jazz players and their music, he was disinclined to totally abandon the bebop (or by this time hardbop) that his mentor and hero Charlie Parker created. Combining aspects of both traditional bop (itself revolutionary for it's time) and more outside free playing would be his challenge during parts of the sixties (see "Destination Out!", "One Step Beyond", "Action", "New and Old Gospel", and particularly Grachan Moncur's "Evolution" to assess how it went). For McLean personally the new freedom of the music invigorated him, and it shows on these albums, as the one thing they all share is the sustained, jagged passion of his playing. Some might call it abrasive, but for me the word to use is most definitely passionate to describe the sound of Jackie's alto, as he emerged from under Parker's tall shadow hovering over the instrument. On this album, and on the track "Omega" in particular, we can see the wisdom of walking the tightrope of structure and chaos, something McLean would do often over the aforementioned series of albums to come. This sonic balancing act, of juggling some sort of structure with the raw emotion that outside playing allows, is exactly the sort of thing John Coltrane did on some of his very best records. However, unlike Coltrane, McLean always comes back down to earth, he regains his tenuous grip of the edge, never falling into the darkness of chaos. Along with Jackie we have the always competent Walter Davis (whose album "Davis Cup" has recently been reissued), who on this album seems to represent Bop's past, and who is an interesting foil for the leader. We also have the amazing Billy Higgins, who after working with Ornette Coleman (among countess others) definitely had a solid understanding of what Jackie was chasing. Really no other drummer was more suited (with the possible exception of Elvin Jones) for giving this album the diversity, not only in tempo, but of feeling and emotion, that "Let Freedom Ring" called for. The end result was a wonderful melding of the "in" and "out", and not unlike Andrew Hill's work, a vision for one possible course jazz might take. "Let Freedom Ring" might , or might not, be the best McLean ever committed to record, but it is a milestone, and for people who appreciate the raw emotion and desperate desire Jackie had to communicate, it will always be a place to come back to and admire.

This landmark album was my introduction to the glorious altoist Jackie McLean who to this day, next to Bird & Sonny Stitt, is one of my favorite alto players. The feelings I had on listening to this album was the same I had when I heard Coltrane's "Giant Steps"--one of overwhelming passion and enthusiasm (I practically wore out the grooves on this one). The cry of his alto is so human but there is also the warmth which no one player can capture since it was McLean's own. Also like "Giant Steps", it was McLean's leap from be-bop to the modal playing of 'Trane and Ornette Coleman. From then on, his albums signified that change from "One Step Beyond", "Destination Out" to "Action". It was a sad day when he died, but his sound lives on in these brilliant Blue Note sides and in particular this ground-breaking album!!

Jackie McLean was one of the most creative voices of jazz in the sixties. Years before, Mingus had encouraged him to explore areas beyond the conventional 32-bar song structures and indeed this remarcable musician was predestinated for such changes of style, maybe in a more controlled manner than Ornette Coleman, but nevertheless in a most effective way through his unique, "sharp" sound, his openmindedness and his awareness of tensions of everyday's life. This album is somehow the missing link between the more traditional "Bluesnik" from 1961 and the exceptional "One Step Beyond" from 1963. The first long track "Melody for Melonae" has a very impressive, dark coloured unison-intro with Herbie Lewis playing arco. During the following extended solo the leader really explores different moods. The climax is the use of a screaming passage in the highest possible register. That kind of attitude will be repeated in a most unexpected manner also on the Bud Powell-Ballade "I'll keep loving you", it seems to be a cry of sorrow and love for his former mentor Bud Powell, who during that time, far away in Paris after bouts with illness struggeled to rebuild his live. "Rene", dedicated to Jacie's son is a more conventional piece (a bright Blues in B-flat, a vehicle on which McLean always sounds great). The most interesting composition on that album is "Omega" with it's contrasts and a repeated high-note pizzicato bass-figure.

"Let Freedom Ring" features McLean at his most Ornette Coleman-eqsue. The presence of Billy Higgins on drums certainly helps in that regard. Rounding out this quartet date are two somewhat obscure players, both of whom smoke on this session: Walter Davis, Jr. on piano and Herbie Laws on bass. Laws in particular makes his presence felt with his versatile playing -- there's some very nice, avant-gardish arco bass on "Melody for Melonae", and some good fun riffing on "Omega". Three of the four compositions are McLean originals, with Bud Powell's "I'll Keep Loving You" rounding out the record.

No frills, no bonus tracks, no alternate takes. The disc clocks in at a short, but sweet 38 minutes. The disc sounds great; Van Gelder's presence as the recording engineer at the original session helps greatly in that regard.

This record is, IMO, McLeans first really good record. McLean was a bebop veteran but unlike most of his colleagues he didn't put down Ornette Colemans innovations and this record shows that influence. McLean had recorded several albums before this one but they were in a conventional hard-bop mode, a style I'm not so fond of. McLeans best earlier playing was instead on Mingus-records like "Picanthropos Erectus" and the incredible "Blues and Roots (one of the best records ever made-listen to "Moanin"!!!). Mingus encouraged McLeans original,intense slightly out-of-tune playing and asked him to cut back on the Be-bop cliches. The first song on this album shows a great extension of the style on Mingus tracks like "Love chant". First the great theme (which doesn't sound hard-bop at all!!!), then an amazingly intense bluesy saxophone solo over a two-chord piano vamp with great drumming by Bill Higgins (of Ornette Colemans early group). Amazing stuff and one of my favourite McLean performances. Next comes a KILLER rendition of a Bud Powell ballad that is the highlight of the album IMO. McLeans playing is heart-wrenchingly beautiful. The next song, "Rene", features another long sax solo that almost wholly consists of pure blues-cliches. This may sound boring but the way McLean distorts and play with the well-known phrases saves it from being dull. Last is "Omega", a three-part number which, again, is awesome. While this record isn't as original as "Destination Out" or other albums in that vein, it's just as good. It's records like this that makes you want to go out and buy a saxophone and just BLOW!!!

I was both fortuante and unfortunate in that my indroduction to Jackie McClean was Destination Out!.

Fortunate is obvious: Destination Out! is one of the best jazz albums of all time. Unfortunate because every McClean album I bought afterwords got held to this absolute gold standard--once the boy has seen Parie'......
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A lot of this is very subjective: I like a lot going on in my music, and both Bobby Hutcherson's vibes and Grechen Moncour's trombone added those extra spices. So when Tower Records was closing and all the Blue Notes were going cheap, I litterally grabbed fistfulls of Jackie McClean, most of which had smaller combos.

So to me, Let Freedom Ring from 1962 sounded a little naked. But I decided to go back and listen to this on its own terms, not in Destination's all encompassing shadow.

And the music is just great. What strikes me on reexamination is first the writing. This is hard bop, but in no way zips through changes like a lot of hard bop albums do. There are lots of minor tonics and ethnic sounding changes--this sounds vaugely Eastern Europian at times-that really make this music stand out. McClean is NOT just running through Charlie Parker on speed.

Second--and what I have always, always, always admired about McClean--is that, like to few of his peers, he was just not trying to sound like Coltrane. Coltrane is a god, and if you have read this far, I am sure you know why.

But McClean is almost the polor opposite. He takes his time, uses space, carves out amazingly sharp sculputes out of those fantastic chord progressions I spoke of. The power of Trane is the sheets of sound. The equal power of McClean are the windows of space. When Jackie rests is as important as the few terrific figures he plays.

I won't elaborate on the brilliant irony of McClean taking the flag waving phrase "Let Freedom Ring" and pointing it back at the flag wavers denying civil rights to then Negros and now African Americans. This was part of an entirely different era, and we all know why McClean had the right stand.

The civil rights movement as refered to here is long over, but the music is alive and well.

Let Jackie Ring

What would you play if you had no fear? What would you listen to if you didn't have to explain it to the others, to your family, to your boss? It would sound like jazz. Let freedom ring. Let play it and listen to "Omega" in particular. Give you an opportunity.