The Spirit of Ornette Coleman hung in the air last Wednesday, manifesting itself in the form of the Mark Lockett Quartet. It was a quartet devoid of chordal instruments. It was Coleman, not Mulligan. It was original music and an example of Coleman induced Lockdown creativity. The inspiration may have come from Coleman’s approach, but Lockett is a true original. He drums musically and tells stories at every turn. His tune titles, his solos and his announcements are tales from a true raconteur. He is a storyteller with an open vocabulary.
I am always enthusiastic about a Lockett gig and with Lucien Johnson in the line-up, it was a sinch. I have reviewed several of Johnson’s albums, the last one, Wax///Wane, was especially fine. Like Lockett, he is adventurous and his musical fearlessness was an asset here. While Lockett composed the tunes (excepting two Monk tunes), Johnson was the principal arranger.
The resulting gig was a tribute to freedom. The sort that shocked in 1959 and doesn’t know. Colman never abandoned the rules, he just invented new ones. His hard to nail down theory of ‘harmolodics’, an evolving rearrangement of hierarchy, with harmony, melody, speed, rhythm, time and phrases jostling for equality. I think that he would have enjoyed this gig as he never wanted followers. What he wanted, was fellow travellers and he found that with this band.
I can’t recall when I last saw a trumpeter, Oscar Laven. He was smokin’ last Wednesday and his forthrightness and bright tone, balanced out the thoughtful and softer toned explorations of Johnson on tenor saxophone. Everyone took solos and the notes they blew added something worthwhile. Behind them and pounding out meaty basslines was Umar Zakaria. We saw Zakaria recently when he fronted his own gig. Here, he was at his best, a Mingus like figure powering the music to greater heights. He was just the right anchor and the others benefitted from his solid earthy cushion.
As the tour progresses throughout the Islands, the audiences will find much to enjoy, and as a bonus, they will hear Lockett’s tall tales of New York and elsewhere. His banter is worth the ticket price alone and if you add to that the joy of fresh sounding music, it’s a bargain.
Mark Lockett Quartet: Mark Lockett (drums), Lucien Johnson (tenor saxophone), Oscar Laven (trumpet), Umar Zakaria (upright bass). The gig was at Anthology, CJC Creative Jazz Club, 22 April 2021.
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Wellington has long possessed a gypsy soul and Jazz Manouche thrives there. In Auckland there are fewer such groups and the common form here is hybridised Gypsy. I am more familiar with these hybrid forms, but as a devotee of improvised music I possess many Django Reinhardt and Bireli Legrene recordings. The Black Spider Stomp are a traditional Gypsy Jazz group and everything about them shouts ‘du Quintet de Hot Club of France’. For a start they look the part in their slick black outfits and they mirror the traditional ensembles – three Manouche guitars, upright bass and clarinet (the clarinet player doubling on soprano and trumpet).
The hallmark of gypsy authenticity is the ability to swing in a particular way, and Black Spider Stomp achieves this. In western European gypsy the absence of a percussion instrument places heavier emphasis on guitar led rhythm. The rhythm guitars are essential to the momentum with their striking ‘la pompe’ strum. This hard swinging pumping style is very distinctive, with its dark chromaticism, bent notes, adherence to certain voicings, rapid arpeggios, powerful rhythms and regular use of vibrato. The tunes are mostly in 4/4 with a heavy accent on two and four (although waltzes are also in the repertoire).
The style is so distinctive that it owns the tunes whatever their origin. Once while traveling in the Carmargue I stopped at a typical Provencal village. As dusk fell a group of Gitano guitarists started playing in the square. The tune was maddeningly familiar and I wrongly thought – this is a Reinhardt composition. It stuck in my head for days and then the penny dropped. It was ‘My Way’ – the tune popularised by Paul Anka and Frank Sinatra. Recently I learned that it is actually a French pop tune. Talk about music travelling where it will. Another perennial favourite in Jazz Manouche is Stevie Wonder’s ‘Isn’t she lovely’. Manouche Jazz itself is a hybrid of American Jazz and Gypsy – and each of those musical influences are sources as vast as an ocean.
The groups use of soprano saxophone (but in this case the straight-horn variant) is also authentic. While violinists like Stephane Grapelli regularly led Manouche ensembles (pre war), the arrival in Paris of horn playing musicians like Sydney Bechet influenced the post war style. Jazz Manouche reached maturity in Paris around the time of WW2 and it was so loved there, that a handful of Jazz loving occupying Nazi’s covertly protected it. The use of a trumpet intrigued me for two reasons. For a reeds musician to double on trumpet is rare – the embouchure is so different. Post millennium we seldom hear such a distinct nod to Louis Armstrong – or to the early swing trumpeters. Perhaps with Armstrong or Bubber Miley in mind, reeds and brass man Baron Oscar Laven treated us to the occasional muted growl and smear. His cheerful enthusiasm for all of his horns was obvious.
Guitars always fascinate me. These were obviously based on the famous Selmer ‘Maccaferri’ guitars favoured by Django. There are two main styles of Jazz Manouche guitar – the ‘D’ hole ‘large mouth’ with its broader rich tone and woody resonance (most often the lead guitar) and the ‘O’ hole ‘small mouth’, which is brighter in sound and has serious cut through. Solos from both were heard. These guitars are things of real beauty, earthy multi-hued wood-grained and framed in a blur of hands appearing from the darkness.
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