At This Point In Time - Elvin Jones

Feb

4

At This Point In Time - Elvin Jones

≡ Category: 1970s, Avant-Guarde, Free Jazz, Fusion, Highly Recommended, Latin Jazz, Post Bop, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING

Rating:

At This Point In Time was made at the very end of Elvin’s tenure at Blue Note Records. It’s a very gutsy record, made at a time when fusion was in full swing. Elvin has his own approach to the musical atmosphere of the times.

Elvin keeps a foot firmly in the jazz tradition, with a big fat horn section consisting of Frank Foster (tenor and soprano sax), Steve Grossman (tenor and soprano sax), and Pepper Adams (bari sax), but he indulges in all sorts of musical experimentation.

On At This Point In Time, he keeps several percussionists up front in the mix, along with a full horn section hitting the 5/4 theme. It doesn’t sound like remotely like anything else that came out at the time.

It gets weirder. On Currents/Pollen, the tune starts with a drum solo, which boils into a African sounding percussion and drum stew. In a startling transition, the tune heads into uptempo swing time, with Jan Hammer playing his curlicue leads on a minimoog, which was new to him, with just the support of Gene Perla on bass and Elvin mostly on brushes. Then we’re back to another drum solo, interspersed with some interesting harmonic movement from a horn section. Then, surprise! Jan Hammer plays a bossa nova riff on electric piano, and we get a guitar solo from Cornell Dupree. Jan gets to show off his rhythmic facility and melodic mastery before the horn section come in with the theme. On Pepper Adams’ baritone sax solo which fades out the tune, he makes lots of interesting note choices that lie outside of the tonality of the piece, particularly flatted ninths and sixths.

The Prime Element has a brutally complicated time signature, with sections in 9 and 6 meters, but it compensates with a simple enough melody. Jan Hammer and Cornell Dupree both take solos. The tune evolves into a drum solo by Elvin with a cowbell and congas holding the time.

After a rubato introduction, The Whims of Bal settles into a 5/4 vamp, over which Pepper Adams blows on baritone sax in his usual forthright manner. Frank Foster and Steve Grossman follow with predictably fine post bop solos on tenor and soprano, respectively. Then the music more or less stops dead for some free playing by Warren Smith on tympani, the percussionists, and all three saxophonists. It’s a madhouse, but surprisingly listenable. The piece ends with some synthesizer noodling from Hammer.

The rest of the release proceeds in a similarly wild and wooly manner.

The preferable way to get this music is in the Mosaic Records Elvin Jones’ Blue Note box set, which is worth any price you have to pay for it, but At This Point In Time is definitely a worthwhile purchase all on it’s own. It’s truly annoying, but Amazon doesn’t have a widget for At This Point In Time. You’ll have to go here to listen to the samples, which are from #47-#53.