HISTORY of BLACK JAZZ RECORDS

One of my favorite record collector pursuits is amassing the complete output of certain labels. It's big fun to own every LP on a particular label and hear the musical trajectory of the artists develop over time. And if you dig what one group or musician is all about, there's likely similar performers to be found in the catalog. 

Of course, this geeky wannabe-hoarder goal becomes easier with smaller labels that had fewer releases compared to behemoths like Columbia Records or even Blue Note or Prestige Records where collecting every original LP could prove a full lifetime's (expensive) pursuit. 

Some hip small record labels of special interest to me include Detroit's 1970s-empowered Tribe Records, the spiritual/modal jazz powerhouse Strata-East Records and the adventurous Cobblestone Records from NYC, all of whom released a bare handful of records in an aware style of Afro-Jazz music heavy on feeling and groove.

Black Jazz Records released only 20 or so original LPs during its short existence from about 1971-1975. All the original pressing Black Jazz LP titles are in heavy demand and some have become exorbitantly priced over the years. In a nod to the short-lived 4-speaker 'Quad' era of Hi-Fi, many of the original albums were recorded in true Quadraphonic sound (stereo compatible). 

The label's biggest 'star' was perhaps keyboardist/composer Walter Bishop Jr., famous for playing BeBop jazz as Charlie Parker's pianist, but found here in funky pan-Afrodelic regalia for his two stellar Black Jazz releases. Another Black Jazz stalwart was keyboardist/composer Doug Carn who along with his then-wife Jean Carn put out four stunning records for the label, each a minor masterpiece of post-Coltrane spiritual funk-jazz dopeness. 

The executive director responsible for gathering these fuzzy lights of the underground jazz scene was soul-jazz pianist (and occasional actor) Gene Russell who recorded the first LPs on the label and produced many Black Jazz releases for other artists. Unfortunately, the label's independent distribution ensured the records stayed scarce and, likely, few Black Jazz titles sold much over 25,000 original copies, accounting for their rarity today in mint condition. 

The private-press look of the early jackets probably didn't help sales: a basic black & white cardboard cover repeated on both sides. They may appear low-budget to some, but the homespun look of the first Black Jazz LPs remain crudely endearing to us record collector geeks.

This is the kind of head-noddingly funky modal jazz and instrumentally expansive funk/soul you'll rarely hear on the radio (even then), but to my ear it remains among the most intelligently played and satisfying, multi-layered music found anywhere. I hope to address every Black Jazz release in chronological catalog order. And yes collectors, these are all original first-pressing LPs!

Black Jazz Records #3 - DOUG CARN 'Infant Eyes'

After recording a rather straight Hammond B-3 organ trio LP for Savoy Records in the mid-1960s, Doug Carn's music became informed with his new-found Muslim spiritual beliefs on 'Infant Eyes', his 1971 LP and first of four released on Black Jazz Records. Joined by wife Jean Carn on operatic space-soul vocals, this is music infused with call-to-prayer incantations that soars freely and echoes within its own still spaces. Amid stately Fender Rhodes washes and sustained B-3 minor chords, complex harmonic snake-charming from flute, tenor sax, trombone and trumpet underpin Jean's righteous jazz vocals which are indebted to June Tyson's tough grit and welded to a sweet-singing Dinah Washington-like sense of phrase. Inventive, sensitive re-imaginings of John Coltrane's 'Welcome', 'Acknowledgement' and 'Peace' make plain the lineage of this music back to classic modern jazz but with a new fresh take via early 1970s revolutionary culture. A fantastic, quietly funky listening experience.

HAL GALPER - 'The Guerrilla Band'

I've been on a non-stop '70s Fender Rhodes electric piano LP collecting frenzy so this was definitely a lovely dig during a recent trip to California. One of the defining Rhodes jazz-funk records of the era, keyboardist Hal Galper's debut as a leader can be a tricky Mainstream Records title to track down, especially in minty shape like this WLP [White Label Promotional] copy. Galper's aggressively driving approach here has a powerful, swirling quality that's complex, modal and quite adventurously funky at times. The Guerilla Band is a searching and furious Fender Rhodes keyboard workout akin to the work of The Awakening's Ken Chaney on Black Jazz Records, another master of the instrument, or perhaps a slightly more fast-paced Eddie Russ approach. "Figure Eight" sounds exactly like its title, full of crisscrossing angular swoops of Bob Mann's searing electric guitar and Galper's fuzzy keyboard lines swimming amidst electric bassist Victor Gaskin and drummer Charles Alias's space-funk bottom. Slickster L.A. studio stalwarts the Brecker brothers make early recording appearances here and actually sound nicely textural and 'in the pocket' with little overblown schmaltz compared to their blaring later efforts. Mysterious, mesmerizing music and superior to Galper's other (but still very highly desirable) LPs on the Mainstream label.

SUN RA & HIS SOLAR-MYTH ARKESTRA 'The Solar Myth Approach - Vol.2'

SUN RA & HIS SOLAR-MYTH ARKESTRA

"The Solar Myth Approach-Volume 2"

1970, Actuel Records


One of the more recent additions to my nearly 75-LP strong Sun Ra collection, this release finds the Saturnian legend in full-on beserker mode in 1970. The keyboard/horn freakout in the opener "The Utter Nots" is unchained from the get-go and only further melts down into a glorious caterwaul of pure sound as it slithers along for 11 minutes, leaving no doubt as to where Mr.Ra was really born -- outer space, dude! The unearthly sounds extracted from his rickety Hohner and RMI keyboards veer between alarming mangy-cat-strangling-inside-of-an-amplified-can tones and mellifluous heavily-reverbed chord clusters that presaged dub-reggae production techniques by 5 years. Sun Ra is one of the very few electric keyboardists who you can hear lay down one chord and tell exactly who it is without doubt. The great long-time Arkestra vocalist June Tyson sings the wonderful "Strange Worlds" with a palpable joy borne of either slavish technique or preternatural abandon while Marshall Allen, John Gilmore, Pat Patrick , Danny Davis, Danny Thompson -- all stunning musicians who could have made a ton of money as session players but stayed solely with the Arkestra for 30 years or more -- provide the seriously off-kilter yet perfectly organic horn/reed charts that are their private trademark... This stuff is just completely what music should be all about. Way fun, slightly nutty and truly awe-inspiring!

PAT MARTINO Baiyina: The Clear Evidence

Pat Martino

"Baiyina: (A Psychedelic Excursion Through the Magical Mysteries of the Koran)

1968, Prestige Records



Wow... Killer, nicely weirded-out tripfest from guitarist Pat Martino. Heavy on heady sitars, tamboura and tabla, this is an ultra-rare release from one of the greatest and most adventurous jazz guitarists of all time. At this point, Martino was thoroughly entranced by Eastern mysticism and John Coltrane [who wasn't?] and the result is a cauldron of mesmerizing ostinato guitar figures set against angular backdrops of Indian polyrhythms and shape-shifting harmonics. This is perhaps one of the oddest releases on the normally straight-ahead soul-jazz torchbearer Prestige Records and an album that has long been considered a definitive document of both flower-power avant-jazz and exploratory world music symbiosis. Bassist Richard Davis is simply on fire here and holds together even the furthest-flung 7/4, 10/8 and 9/4 time signatures like he's playing root-fives over a 4/4 beat. The twelve-minute title track and the thirteen-minute "Distant Lands" are exotic-sounding attempts to convey the culture & the homilies of the Koran via music. It's exciting, exquisite stuff that frequently drifts cloud-like into dark, billowy formations of pure sound and texture furiously powered by whirling dervish beats.... His earlier release on Prestige, the superb "East!" , explored similar terrain in a more strict jazz-guitar based template -- but with equally stunning results.

Photo ~ SUN RA 1966 'Heliocentric Worlds II' LP on New York's E.S.P Records