Jazz began at the confluence of a polyglot of musical customs – the trick was in the mix. In the intervening years, many of the most important developments have arisen as a process of renewal from elements within the resources of the music itself. Its vitality is sapped, however, by over-emphasis on a particular component, or when ‘alien’ ingredients are introduced at the expense of the delicate balance of the original blend.
This is the chief danger inherent in the contemporary love affair with ‘Rock’ – the illegitimate heir to urban blues. It takes great discipline to avoid the consequent neutralizing of the idiom, which is presumably why so few ‘Jazz-Rock’ recordings have left more than an ephemeral ripple on the surface of the music.
Chief among the handful of amplifier-tamers is Collier, often cited as having extended Ducal procedures, when, rather, he is working within the Gil Evans translation of those principles.
Like Gil’s, this is very much an urban music, betraying a yearning for the wide-open spaces. It also expresses such a broad range of tonal and emotional colours that reactions to this performance are likely to be highly personal and even vary just as widely from episode to episode.
The danger-spots are frequent rubato passages, where the pulse becomes cerebral, and lengthy patches of meagre dynamic contrast.
The undoubted star of this shimmering, sprawling, often exultant, but sometimes dithering work is trumpeter Harry Beckett, shaping his statements with solemn wit, elegance, flaring fire, or moving lyricism. He has yet to surpass on record his thrilling work during Neil Ardley’s Carillon I, but comes pretty close here, revealing a consistency which must establish him high among contemporary jazz trumpeters. Derek Wadsworth’s saturnine, windmill-tilting trombone style also flourishes – but, against these, there are other passages which belie the serious thought which has gone into them by tonally echoing the more mundane features of the current Juke Box scene.
Something of a curate’s egg, then – but, on its own terms, surpassed in vision and execution only by the recent achievements of Collier’s musical mentor. Scores for both Darius and the fragmentary A New Dawn are available from Graham Collier Music, 51 Nevern Square, London SW5 9PF, price 75p.
Discography
Darius (Paris I, II, III) (27¼ min) – Darius (Parts III (cont), IV, V); A New Dawn (22 min)
Harry Beckett (tpt); Derek Wadsworth (tbn); Geoff Castle (elec-pno): Ed Speight (gtr); Graham Collier (bs); John Webb (dm). 13/3/74.
(Mosaic GCM 741 £2.20)