Customer Reviews

Soul Battle

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the all-time greatest "blowin' sessions" ever recorded. It's a wonderful showcase for three different styles of jazz saxophone playing, featuring bluesy, swinging tunes full of sophisticated harmonies. Composer and virtuoso sax player Oliver Nelson adopts (on this album, at least) a John Coltrane-, Dexter Gordon-like sound, droning, vibrato-less, slightly metallic. He builds his solos out of simple melodic cells pushed up and down the scale with increasingly ingenious modulations. Very abstract yet accessible. King Curtis has a slightly raspy, "gutbucket" R&B/Soul sound (he later went on to play back-up for Aretha Franklin) and proves himself to be a superb jazz musician as well, displaying real intelligence and feeling in his solos. He is the big surprise here. Jimmy Forrest is a Kansas City swing musician who played in both Basie's and Ellington's orchestra and has obviously been deeply influenced by the saxophone gods Johnny Hodges and Ben Webster. He has never sounded more beautiful than he does here. All three disparate styles blend magnificently on this session, with the soloists continually swapping ideas back and forth, building on each other's musical thoughts, extending them, breaking out in joyous "fours" (especially toward the end of Juan Tizol's classic "Perdido"). The terrific rhythm section consists of Gene Casey on piano (sounding like a cross between Thelonious and Duke), George Duvivier on bass, and the great Roy Haynes on drums. Four of the six tunes are Nelson originals, full of his usual melodic fluency and Monkish harmonic sophistication--really infectious stuff. This is an album that catches you right away and doesn't get old, even after the 127th listening.

Very few of the recorded multi-tenor sessions begin to do justice to the experience of attending a live session featuring 3-4 boss tenors going after one another (a fairly common occurrence in Chicago throughout the sixties and seventies). Of the twenty or so recorded sessions I've heard, this one is the stand-out. Each player's style is sufficiently distinctive to make identification possible even for a serious neophyte, and each player represents a different era, or sub-genre, of the music. Nevertheless, common to all three is a commitment to go for broke and to keep it fiery and swinging at all times.

Although some listeners have disagreed with me, Oliver Nelson is simply sublime on each of his turns--a composer-arranger who thinks compositionally while he's improvising. His solos have a beginning, middle, and end--he uses tension-release techniques in his harmonies as well as his rhythmic phrasing (lots of repetition preceding the explosion). To some ears it's a bit too "far out," but stay with each Nelson solo. He never remains outside the harmonic form: eventually he'll reward the listener with satisfying closure but not before he's achieved that "climax" unique to his playing. (Just listen to his solo on "Mainstem" some time.)

This is a Prestige session, which is another big plus. Van Gelder is the recording engineer, but unlike his Blue Note sessions, the musicians have more influence on the proceedings, mic pickups, outcome. As a result, each of the horns is "present" without being overly hot or distorted (I've tried twice to listen to two different recordings of "A Blowin' Session" with Griffin, Coltrane and Mobley, but the audio is so frantic and loud it's hard to appreciate either the uniqueness of each player's "voice" or to stay with the substance of the solos.)

Everyone will have a favorite from "Soul Battle." I've never heard a more memorable "Perdido," thanks in part to Oliver's practically reinventing the tune during his solo.

To the listener who has the patience to listen carefully, another tenor exchange that's capable of yielding lasting rewards (and many playings) is "Tenor Conclave," with Mobley, Coltrane, Sims, and Cohn. It's a lot of notes to process, but if your mind is on the "language" of the music rather than mere sonic blast, it's a recording well worth the listener's, or musician's, time.

The discerning listener will immediately realize that he or she has discovered a classic. Oliver Nelson is a musical architect of the first order. King Curtis's performance, to say the least, is a mind-blowing surprise. Jimmy Forrest is solid and steady. What else can you say. These three tenors came into the studio to memorialize what swinging is all about. If you can't get next to this cd, then you are just square!

The discerning listener will immdediately realize that he or she has discovered a classic. Oliver Nelson is a musical architect of the first order. King Curtis's performance, to say the least, is a mind-blowing surprise. Jimmy Forrest is solid and steady. What else can you say. These three tenors came into the studio to memorialize what swinging is all about. If you can't get next to this cd, then you are just square!

The three-saxophone lineup (Nelson, King Curtis, Jimmy Forrest) works well on this blowing session for Prestige/New Jazz. Half the tunes are blues, two slow and one medium-up, and these guys just eat them up. All three are master blues players, so what do you expect? Juan Tizol's PERDIDO is taken up, and it too comes across very nicely. The obscure Gene Casey is on piano, and Nelson's long-time drummer Roy Haynes keeps things moving and nailed down at the same time. Just slightly below Nelson's earlier Prestige/New Jazz albums, but a worthwhile addition to anyone's jazz CD library.

I give this album 5 stars mainly for the tune "Anacruses". The contrasting styles of the three tenors is remarkable yet they work very well together. The first time I heard Nelson's solo on Anacruses I wept because I found it so beautiful. The way he uses simple patterns to construct a complex improvisation is amazing.

This is one of Oliver Nelson's best sessions. Remember King Curtis? I was amazed at how well he could play straight ahead jazz improvisations. It's a shame that Oliver Nelson died so young. He is truly one ot the great musicians who remains largely unrecognized by the general public.