FRANK WRIGHT – Your Prayer (LP-1967 / ESP Disk')

Label: ESP Disk – ESP 1053

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1967

Style: Free Jazz

Recorded in New York City, May 1967, RLA Sound Studios NY.

Engineer – Richard L. Alderson

Photography By – Harlene Sandra Stollman

All compositions did Frank Wright, except Jones' "The Lady".

A1 - The Lady . . . . . 9:04

A2 - Train Stop . . . . . 7:32

A3 - No End . . . . . 6:49

B1 - Fire Of Spirits . . . . . 12:31

B2 - Your Prayer . . . . . 15:42

Frank Wright – tenor saxophone

Arthur Jones – alto saxophone

Jacques Coursil – trumpet

Steve Tintweiss – bass

Muhammad Ali – drums, percussion

Despite the fact that avant-garde jazz has often met with the criticism that its tonalities and rhythms put it far outside the jazz (and by extension black music) tradition, it is quite true that many of the forerunners of free jazz found their voice in blues and R&B outfits. Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Dewey Redman, Noah Howard, Prince Lasha and Pharoah Sanders all came up in blues bands in the South and Midwest, which in some ways predate both bebop and avant-garde credentials... 

Mississippi-born and Cleveland-raised tenor man Frank Wright (1935-1990) was one of the forerunners of the multiphonics-driven school of saxophonists to follow the direction pointed by Ayler, but with a more pronounced bar-walking influence than most of his contemporaries. Whereas Ayler's high-pitched wails, wide vibrato and guttural honks all belied an R&B pedigree, his solos still contained the breakneck tempos and facility of bebop, for which he had earlier earned the nickname "Little Bird. Wright, on the other hand, offers his honks and squawks with a phraseology derived from the slower, earthier funk of R&B and gospel music; indeed, he was a bassist in Cleveland blues bands until switching to tenor in the early '60s as a result of Ayler's influence (the same influence that brought Wright to New York in 1964).

Wright had not been playing tenor long when he was asked to make Coltrane's Ascension date (he had sat in with Trane on several occasions previously), but reportedly he declined it fearing his skills weren't at the level required by the music. Nevertheless, Wright did make his first session as a leader a few months later, in a trio with bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Tom Price for then-fledgling ESP-Disk' (Frank Wright Trio, ESP 1023).

In the spring of 1967, Wright made his second date as a leader for ESP, the powerful quintet statement of Your Prayer (ESP 1053) featuring Wright in the company of Cleveland-born altoist Arthur Jones, expatriate Martinique-born, French-educated trumpeter Jacques Coursil, drummer Muhammad Ali and bassist Steve Tintweiss. Where the first date falters at a lack of dynamics and cohesion (not to mention experience), Your Prayer finds Wright refining the bag his solos come from, yet maintaining a firm hold on the ecstatic free-blues shout that makes up most of his solo language. The set starts off with Jones' composition "The Lady, a simple unison ascending-descending call for the horns peaking in vibrato, which gives way to a searing solo by the composer with echoes of Dolphy's speed and intervallic leaps coupled to Johnny Hodges' tone, a quality that clearly defined this altoist's style for the few years he was actively recording. Coursil follows with a deft series of punches and blasts, exuding the bubbly-yet-raw swing his solos always carry, even in the most 'out' contexts.

Wright's distorted squall seems like a real style now (though in the ensuing twenty-odd years, it would change some), a thick wall of sound that is less given to distraction, coming through pure and hot. In the Wright-Ali duo that follows, "Train Stop, Wright harps rhythmically on phrases, repeating and expanding upon them and wringing out every last growling breath before moving to yet another plane far eclipsing the ADD approach that hampers his first recording. Muhammad Ali, brother to the more well- known free drummer Rashied, approaches the kit with a more singular style that focuses on hurtling masses than the allover, coloristic palette that his elder sibling has employed. At over fifty minutes (for a single LP at its release), Your Prayer is a rather lengthy slab of high-energy grit, but its unified forward and upward motion make for a firmly rooted sonic liberation.

Slightly over a year after recording his second ESP session, Wright, Ali, Jones, altoist Noah Howard and pianist Bobby Few would leave New York together for Europe with the wave of American free players that subsequently descended on Paris. The Center of the World Quartet (Wright, Ali, Few, and Howard, who was later replaced by bassist Alan Silva) recorded prodigiously for BYG, America, Calumet, Sun and their own Center of the World label throughout the '70s, and brought the tools of post-Coltrane freedom to bear on a decidedly funkier and more populist approach to ecstatic jazz. As poet Larry Neal wrote in a 1969 review of Ayler's R&B record New Grass in the Cricket, "I know what the Brother is trying to do. But his procedure is fucked up. Though these ESP sessions are only an early indicator, Frank Wright was one to get it "on."

_By CLIFFORD ALLEN, July 13, 2005 (AAJ)


One of Frank Wright's finest recordings.

If you find it, buy this album!

RAPHE MALIK QUARTET – Last Set: Live at The 1369 Jazz Club 1984 (2004)

Label: Boxholder Records – BXH042
Format: CD, Album; Country: US - Released: 2004
Style: Free Jazz, Post Bop, Contemporary Jazz
Recorded live on September 13, 1984 at The 1369 Jazz Club, Cambridge Massachussets
Re-Design (pages 2,3,4,5,6) by ART&JAZZ Studio; Designer: VITKO - 2013
Edited By, Mastered By – Jim Hemingway

Review:

The release of Last Set: Live at the 1369 Jazz Club apparently helps to fill a huge hole in the discography of trumpeter Raphe Malik, a free jazz stylist whose improvising as well as manner of presentation are perpetually personal and fresh, a far cry from mindless conformity and a handy weapon in weeding out such attitudes. The wimps will have fled home for what is sometimes called "the late night hipsters' set." Anyone still left is either seriously interested, too deranged to worry about, or a drug dealer, sometimes all three at once. Even if Malik had been releasing lots of new material circa 1984 this would still be a valuable recording, one that ought to make even the seasoned free jazz listener stomp his foot in approval. Malik's name became known through his playing with pianist, bandleader, and perpetual machine of dynamic motion Cecil Taylor. The trumpeter's use of energy is much different than his old keyboard-stomping boss, but he certainly learned much about the slow, even, and subtle creation of an inferno. The live set from a club in Cambridge, MA, adds tenor saxophonist Frank Wright to the regular trio of Malik, bassist William Parker, and drummer Syd Smart. This is a terrific rhythm section, no question about that, and more on them later -- but first a righteous tip of the hat to Wright, a player whose presence on a date inevitably means much fun is to be had.

Some aspects of this Wright appearance are typical, some not. His name often goes hand in hand with recordings that audiophiles would consider to have inferior sound quality. Indeed, no appraisal of Wright's contribution to the recorded library of jazz would be complete without listening to several albums where distortion is so great it sounds like he screwed his reed to the microphone rather than the saxophone. The problem with the recording here is a kind of distant sound, this obviously being documentation created by somebody sitting in the audience. This sound should actually grow on the listener as the set proceeds, as if the musicians were listening to the playback on headphones at the time and making suitable adjustments in dynamics and tone. Boosting the bass range on playback equipment as well as punching volume boost buttons and the like are sure to be a great help. What makes this performance different than various sets under Wright's name, such as the Center of the World series, is that he expertly transforms his style in collaboration with Malik. He is still incendiary, eccentric, and groovy; he just dials the anxiety level down a notch to provide the trumpeter with a more relaxed foil in the front horn line. Wright also sings a lot, an uninhibited contribution that superficially seems to get lost due to a lack of balance in the recording. What actually happens is that Wright's singing is at quite a subtle volume during episodes where it is not expected. Vocalizing of this sort may be quite typical during really intense parts of free jazz performances -- sections of John Coltrane's Live in Seattle come to mind as does the marvelous word "caterwauling" -- but here Wright is singing during a drum solo, for example. Considering that it is the last set of the night, the singing sometimes sounds like it might be coming not from the stage but from one of the previously mentioned audience members. The effect is unique and wonderful. The lo-tech "mix" that makes it sound this way is an accident, but who cares?

"Sad C" seems like a warm-up despite its length of 15 minutes, albeit a necessary one; this is the start of the set, and Malik seems to be wandering down hallways, then poking at simmering garlic cloves with a wooden spoon. "Companion #2" is next, just shy of 30 minutes in length and an episodic rave-up. Wright makes brutal decisions; Smart tosses out accents and addenda, a stylistic arsenal that sounds like no other drummer. Parker plays the first of two superb bass solos -- this one is bowed, and for the finale of "Chaser" he plucks, appropriately, since R&B and rock & roll seem to be on the minds of Wright and Smart. They are indeed right and smart in their attitudes, this track comparing favorably with similar performances by the likes of Frank Lowe or the Human Arts Ensemble. There is only one reason jazz listeners would want to skip this CD: they would have to want everything to sound like Rudy Van Gelder recorded it.
_ AMG



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