Jeff McCord on the month’s new releases
Ornette Coleman
Sound Grammar
Living in an age where the “genius” label is as common as pocket change leaves a breathtakingly original artist like Fort Worth’s ORNETTE COLEMAN out in the critical cold. Coleman calls his music—marked by brittle melody, propulsive rhythms, and a lack of sonic density—“harmolodics,” a term that doesn’t convey much to the uninitiated. But the 76-year-old finds no limits in language. SOUND GRAMMAR (Sound Grammar), Coleman’s first release in a decade, shows that a mere 26 letters, or in this case, 12 notes, can’t restrain his imagination. Coleman’s sidemen (two bassists and son Denardo on drums) don’t coast on clichéd riffs set to overused chord changes. Instead, the joyous and uninhibited music hangs on composed melodic lines punctuated by Coleman’s ethereal alto sax. The set is, except for two tracks, all new material. And it soars: “Matador” dances with playfulness; the haunting “Sleep Talking” harks back to Coleman’s classic quartet with Charlie Haden and Don Cherry. Ultimately, what to call a talent as unique as Coleman is a moot point. An album this noteworthy leaves only one question: Why doesn’t he record more often?
Kashmere Stage Band
Now-Again
High school band albums, which proliferate in every community that has a music program, are usually so tedious that even the parents who buy them can’t bear to listen. On awful recordings packed with bad tunings and missed cues, the student musicians muddle through some stock big-band arrangement about as interesting to them as they are to the washed-out musician conducting. Yet every so often, a teacher comes along who truly motivates kids, letting them play the music they love while surreptitiously teaching them the foundations of their craft. In sixties and seventies Houston, at Kashmere High School, that man was Conrad O. Johnson. Johnson could write, arrange, and inspire, and on these KASHMERE STAGE BAND recordings, long coveted by deejays and collectors alike, he did just that. TEXAS THUNDER SOUL (Now-Again) is amazing historically and a wildly entertaining funk extravaganza. Johnson calls these recorded gems, painstakingly assembled with his cooperation, merely a “facsimile” of what his kids could do. They could do plenty; this overdriven slice of funk nirvana holds its own with the best of the era.
Richard Buckner
Merge
His air is somber, his words obtuse, and his arrangements formless, yet there’s something irresistible about the nomadic malcontent RICHARD BUCKNER. Buckner sings as though he’s trying to explain something to you without being overheard; his focus is laserlike. He’s no slave to structure either: His songs, like him, make a lot of unexpected moves. Buckner’s not a Texan (he hails from the West Coast), but his debut was on a San Marcos label, and his breakthrough second album, Devotion + Doubt, was produced by former True Believer JD Foster. So no one was surprised when he rolled into Austin a couple years back. Now in Brooklyn, he has reunited with Foster for MEADOW (Merge), a set of edgy yet intimate recordings (“Recorded by JD Foster at his place, Richard’s place and another place” read the credits). No one would call Buckner happy-go-lucky, but his plaintive voice makes the material sadder than intended. Or so it seems. Full of ruminations on turning his back and walking away from life’s travails, Buckner seems in search of something out of his reach. Until he finds it, these travelogues will do just fine.
Dewey Redman
(1931-2006)
I MET DEWEY REDMAN in Fort Worth on a gray day in 2000. He was cleaning out the home of his recently deceased mother, and he welcomed our interview as an excuse for a much-needed break. The iconic saxophonist, who passed away on September 2 at age 75, talked engagingly about music, his famous son Joshua, and his remarkable life. Remembered as a vital and impetuous voice in the adventurous jazz movement, Redman didn’t set out to be a full-time musician. He was already 36 when his boyhood pal Ornette Coleman coaxed him up to New York in the late sixties. But his impact was immediate. Redman played his tenor sax with an urgency his peers lacked; his stunning work with Coleman, Keith Jarrett, and Old and New Dreams made up for lost time. Still, with long periods of inactivity, Redman never seemed to find his definitive break. I last saw him in 2005 at an Austin club gig with drummer Gerry Gibbs. He said he was tired. Coleman once described Redman as “always in a low key”; there was a resigned sadness brought about by his near miss at the big time. Yet even without his due rewards, he knew what anyone hearing his brilliance among the jazz elite realized: He had left his mark.
