Poly-Currents - Elvin Jones

Aug

23

Poly-Currents - Elvin Jones

≡ Category: 1960s, Highly Recommended, Music Reviews, Post Bop |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

Poly-Currents is one of the more musically elusive recordings of Elvin Jones’ great Blue Note period. Like many of Elvin’s recordings from this period, there is no chordal instrument, which already presents a layer of abstraction, but Poly-Currents seems almost willfully abstruse.

The instrumental forces are rather large, including Joe Farrell (flute, tenor sax, and English horn), George Coleman (tenor sax), Pepper Adams (baritone sax), Wilber Little (bass), Candido Camero (congas), and Elvin Jones (drums), but the arrangements are sparse, making the listener strain to make out the forms of the tunes.

The opening tune, Agenda, is a case in point. After a conga introduction, Joe Farrell gives us the head on English horn, a meandering minor mode ditty, with Pepper Adam’s offering the occasional countermelody on baritone sax. Then Farrell and Adams give us a harmonized rhythmic riff for a few bars, which leads into Farrell’s ruminative solo, followed by Adam’s slightly more aggressive modally based improvisation. But the heart of the piece is the dialog between Elvin and Candido Camero, in which the standard roles of the drummer and percussionist are reversed, with Candido holding down the pulse while Elvin solos in his off-kilter way. My sister once said that Elvin sounds like he’s falling down a flight of stairs, and that’s as good a description as any.

Agappe Love is even wispier. Over a ghostly bass line, Joe Farrell whistles past the graveyard on his flute, while Elvin plays quietly on brushes and mallets. George Coleman joins in with a contrasting lines on tenor before Farrell fades out and leaves Coleman to his own devices. The tune is barely there, so much so that you could blink and miss it.

Mr. Jones, written by Elvin’s wife Keiko, is the only extroverted tune on the date. The head is a playful, sing-songy ditty, which leads into a minor blues form for the bebop solos by Joe Farrell on tenor sax and Pepper Adams on baritone sax. Sounds pretty standard, but Elvin’s drumming, Candido’s congas and the unusual sound of the bari sax make Mr. Jones a lot of fun.

We’re back to inscrutability again with Third Stream composer Fred Tompkins’ Yes, on which the composer plays the flute. The melody is pretty abstract, though not in a dissonant way. Joe Farrell offers countermelodies on bass flute. The tune peters out without anyone really taking a solo.

Whew, the closer, is an interesting little tune. The melody and harmony is completely shouldered by an intricate bass part, with Joe Farrell and George Coleman punctuating the theme with short puffs from their horns. Then we’re into the solos by Farrell and Coleman, which don’t really follow the form of the tune, but are really just vamping over one chord. However, Farrell finds a lot to say, travelling in and out of the basic tonality and chopping up the rhythms, at one point conversing with Elvin. Wilbur Little has a short bass solo consisting mostly of double stops before returning to the theme to close out the tune and the date.

Doesn’t sound like much, does it? Well, when you have musicians of this caliber, it is. The communication is at a very high level, so the group interplay is marvelous. The quality of the solos is consistently high and Elvin has arranged for a variety of moods and instrumental colors. Poly-Currents is a quiet and introspective album and perhaps isn’t as exciting as some of Elvin’s other Blue Note dates, but it’s still well worth owning. The best way to do that is to pick up the Mosaic label’s box set of Elvin Jones’ Blue Note sessions if you can find it used.