Label:
Impulse! – A-9138, ABC Records – AS-9138
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Stereo / Country: US / Released: 1968
Style:
Free Jazz, Free Improvidation
Recorded At Van
Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 11/15/66.
Design
– Robert Flynn
Design
[Liner] – Joe Lebow
Photography
By – Charles Stewart
Engineer
– Rudy Van Gelder
Liner
Notes – Nat Hentoff
Producer
– Bob Thiele
Matrix
/ Runout (Side A): AS 9138 A LW
Matrix
/ Runout (Side B): AS 9138 B LW
Matrix
/ Runout (Side A + B): VAN GELDER (Stamped)
Note:
A-9138
on sleeve. AS-9138 on labels and runout. Black and red ABC Impulse! labels 1968.
"A
Product Of ABC Records, Inc. New York, N.Y. 10019 Made in USA" on bottom
perimeter of label.
A - Upper
Egypt & Lower Egypt ................................................................
16:30
B1
- Japan ....................................................................................................
3:29
B2
- Aum / Venus / Capricorn Rising ...........................................................14:52
Pharoah
Sanders – alto sax, tenor sax, piccolo flute, vocals
Warren
"Sonny" Sharrock – guitar
Dave
Burrell – piano
Henry
Grimes – bass
Roger
Blank – drums, percussion
Nat Bettis –
percussion
A - Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt
The
album opens with a collective meditation. Tympani(?), cymbal smashes,
Sharrock's new approach to post-Coltrane ballad guitar, twangy and shuddering,
Burrell as chordal colourist - a group - sound - and - feel -, not the soloist
as free individual striving to be the lone voice...
A
brief Henry Grimes bass solo - again concerned with textures and sounds, with
the bass's properties as means of producing sound, with timbre and quality,
with woozy arco rather than the melodic, horn-like role of La Faro or Gomez
with Bill Evans.
Now
Sanders' enters for the first time. His delayed entry could be said to either
downplay or enhance the individual leader role I hinted at in the first
paragraph: by waiting so long, his entry becomes more expected ("this
album is under his name - where is he?"), more hoped for, perhaps - but at
the same time the delay is a way of saying "you don't - need - to hear me
straightaway - these other guys are important too." Playing piccolo,
rather than sax, he vocalises through the instrument while playing, as he does
on 'To Be', the flute/piccolo duet with Coltrane on 'Expression'. An 'exotic'
and still striking sound, it could have become a novelty effect if Sanders had
chosen to over-deploy it, but this and 'To Be' are the only recorded instances,
I think. Needless to say, it's effect is a little different to Roland Kirk's
use of similar techniques...
Drum
ritual, low-toned. Almost nine minutes in, and Grimes is about to solo again -
no, instead he locks in and begins to build the famous groove that will
underpin the rest of the track (I guess we've reached 'Lower Egypt')... In
itself, with the emphasis on rhythm (the players' truly functioning as 'rhythm
section' here!), this could be seen as part of the 'back to Africa' movement -
although (I speak from a position of relative ignorance), with a simplified,
totalizing effect that downplays the complexities of actual African tribal
music.
And
Pharoah's solo, though brief, has such impact. For reasons of context perhaps:
it's the first time he's let rip on sax, indeed, the first time we've heard him
play sax at all on the album. Once again, the employment of the delaying/
waiting tactic - "that groove's been going on for - three minutes - now -
what the hell is going on?" You're about to find out - Pharoah, first,
echoing the groove line, three times playing the riff, then some repeated
figure, now a note, first clean, now overblown - then, suddenly, WHAAARGH!
WHAAARGH! WHAAARGH! I find it hard to restrain a physical reaction to those
overblown whorfs of sound when I hear them. They seem so inevitable, so right -
so truly the sound of a man as himself, as one with his instrument, as looking
at his true centre, his true self. From the liner notes, his quotes resonate:
"I don't really see the horn anymore. I'm trying to see myself. And
similarly, as to the sounds I get, it's not that I'm trying to scream on my
horn, I'm just trying to put all my feelings into the horn. And when you do
that, the ntoes go away[...] Why [do] I want clusters [of notes]? So that I
[can] get more feeling, more of me, int oevery note I play. You see, everything
you do has to mean something, has to be more than just notes. That's behind
everything I do - trying to get more ways of getting feeling out."
The
subdued vocals that follow, might be a little underwhelming on their own, but
are perhaps a necessary coming down, back to earth, back to the groove, to
melody, after that solo...
B1
- Japan
At
just over three minutes, this is quite clearly an 'interlude' between the two
long tracks. Chugging bells and a stately promenade beat, Grimes mixing things
up a little by alternating affirmative on-the-beat plucks with melodic
counterpoint that goes in a slightly different direction. Sanders then sings
the melody a few times, Grimes takes what I suppose one might call a short
solo, then it ends.
B2
– a) - Aum
Pharoah
had been here before, participating in Coltrane's 'OM' from 1965 (about which,
see 'Circling Om', Simon Weill's superb article, available on the All About
Jazz website). Things aren't nearly as terrifying here, though this is probably
the freest section of the album. Lick-spit-riddling cymbals and hit-hat keep
the sound tight, Grimes' immediately perplexing it with fast free walking,
Burrell adds boxy ominous chords, then Sanders comes in, sribbling away on alto
while Roger Blank switches to the more forceful toms. Off-mike for a moment, we
might suppose Pharoah to be in an eye-closed calisthenics of ecstasy; he roils
up and down, his tone vocal and gruff (though not as powerful as on tenor).
Sawing, see-sawing up and down in motions that lead to a - strain - for volume
and air, at the end, of those long notes held before the next darting rally.
Highest in the mix behind the sax are the drums - the recording isn't great
(they really should release a new mix of the album), but your ear can just
about pick up Sonny Sharrock raging behind the Pharoah. Imagine the sonic
experience if this had been better recorded! These guys truly had power behind
their sound, it was - frightening - ...
B2
– b) - Venus
Sounds
like they suddenly turned Sharrock up in the mix because they thought he was
going to solo - as it is, Pharoah comes back in almost immediately, on tenor,
but we do get to hear a precious few seconds of that guitar squall. Sanders'
tone just - radiates - spirituality - later on, perhaps he traded on that a bit
too much (by playing even just melodies he could convince), but here the utter
sincerity is captivating, the vitality of being and the living of life in
sound. Shakers and cymbals, strummed repeated bass notes and finally piano runs
that prefigure Lonnie Liston Smith's harp-like arpeggios on 'Hum-Allah'. One
might also note that 'Aum/Venus/Capricorn Rising' has the concision 'Hum-Allah'
lacks. The three-part structure focusses things, prevents over-reliance on just
one groove, one vibe. Sanders' playing of the melody, and variants on it, are
the main focus here; either Sharrock's not playing, or he's just really
undermiked - I guess guitar in avant-jazz wasn't really too common at the time;
maybe producer Bob Theile just didn't know how to deal with it.
B2
– c) - Capricorn Rising
'Capricorn
Rising' seems to be a variation on the melody of 'Venus', no less sublime. It's
as if Pharoah taps into this stream of melody which is that of the universe -
he takes a little fragment, puts it in barlines, turns it into a melody of its
own - self-sufficient, but part of a greater whole. And I guess that's the
essence of jazz improvisation too - endless variation, and sometimes that
reality can include what we'd term noise, fearsome sounds of overblown shrieks
- all part of Pharoah's 'Journey to the One'. Earth-bound for transcendence,
Pharoah's playing here acknowleges difficulty and struggle; indeed, it -
incorporates - them into lyricism, rather than retreating into the slightly
drippy peace-and-love sentiment, as with 'The Creator Has a Masterplan'...
So,
where does that love 'Tauhid' as a whole? Well, it shows that, for all their
reputations, free jazzers wrote damn good tunes... At
a relatively brief 34:20, Tauhid has all the elements which characterised
Sanders' astral excursions—explicit spiritual references, vocal chants, a
rolling bass ostinato, "exotic" percussion, out-there but lyrical
tenor saxophone, and extended vamp-based collective jamming—and crucially, was
played by an edgier and more challenging band, including guitarist Sonny
Sharrock and pianist Dave Burrell, than was assembled for Karma. The later
album was made by a distinctly more blissed-out line-up, lacking Sharrock, in
which the comfort-zone pianist Lonnie Liston Smith and vocalist Leon Thomas
figured large.
Over
the next few years, Lonnie Liston Smith, already worryingly jazz-funkish on
Karma, played a key role on Sanders' albums, which became increasingly codified
and formulaic. In retrospect, the first cut was indeed the deepest, and for
many devotees Tauhid remains Sanders' finest (half) hour.
_Rewiew
By – DAVID GRUNDY
If
you find it, buy this album!
