Open Ears
February 2002

Open Ears
Archive <& /articles/open_archive.tmp &>

By Laurence Donohue-Greene

Modern clarinetists are few and far in between. Pee Wee Russell, Tony Scott, and Jimmy Giuffre played some of the most so-called “modern” clarinet the instrument has ever known. However, Giuffre represents more of the clarinet-playing norm than exception in the sense that the clarinet does not have many exclusive practitioners. Though Giuffre’s primary instrument might be considered the clarinet, he is of course fluent on many other reed and wind instruments including baritone, tenor, and soprano saxophones, as well as bass flute and other flutes. Not only dedicated, but devoted, to playing clarinet as a sole instrument rather than a convenient doubling, Russell and Scott are joined by only a few other pure bred post-Swing era clarinetists such as Buddy DeFranco, Perry Robinson, Rolf Kuhn, and perhaps the most innovative clarinet virtuoso on the jazz scene in the last generation, Don Byron.

Byron has now released near nine albums as a leader including his last four for Blue Note Records. From one project to the next, Byron avoids any semblance of repetition in concept, having traversed the disparate worlds of klezmer (Plays the Music of Mickey Katz, 1993), small group swing ala John Kirby and Duke Ellington (Bug Music, 1996), street rap and hip-hop (Nu Blaxpoitation, 1998), and even operatic arias and lieder (A Fine Line, 2000). His latest is the delayed follow-up to his Music For Six Musicians (Atlantic, 1995), entitled You Are #6 ­ More Music for Six Musicians (Blue Note, 2001), on which he explores Latin, Afro-Caribbean and calypso music and rhythms. This recording finally presents an opportunity for the clarinetist to reflect his significant influence of living Latin legend Eddie Palmieri, who he admits ranks alongside his other major music influences of saxophonists and composers Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins, and Gary Bartz, not to mention clarinetists Jimmy Hamilton and Tony Scott.

Marking his first appearance at the Village Vanguard in six years (around the time of his original Music for Six Musicians), Byron featured his recently recorded sextet the week of Martin Luther King’s birthday. Sharing the double-horn frontline was trumpeter James Zollar who has worked with Byron in the past on Bug Music as well as being a fellow member of the Kansas City Band (documented and recorded in the film and soundtrack to Robert Altman’s disastrous movie, Kansas City, released coincidentally the same year as Bug Music). Byron’s pianist, Edsel Gomez, has worked with the clarinetist since the leader’s debut recording, Tuskegee Experiments (Elektra/Nonesuch, 1990), and offered his percussive piano approach to the Latin spiced rhythm flavors of Byron’s new project. And rounding out the sextet along with bassist, Leo Traversa, the percussion foundation was superbly supplied by drummer Ben Wittman and conga master, Milton Cardona.

You Are #6 ­ More Music for Six Musicians finds such past Byron collaborators as multi-reed and wind player J.D. Parran and trombonist Josh Roseman (both found on Byron’s Plays the Music of Mickey Katz), and Jazz Passenger and Lounge Lizard trombone player Curtis Fowlkes (who recorded on Byron’s Nu Blaxploitation), as well as Robert Debellis (featured on Bug Music), and trumpeter Ralph Alessi (who worked with Byron on several Uri Caine recordings within the last few years). Though the total number of musicians on the recording amounts to a surprising twenty, including an additional percussionist on over half of the selections, Wittman and Cardona seemed to adequately compensate along with Byron who occasionally assisted in the rhythmic department con shakere. The live Vanguard session, however, lacked the unique vocal contributions that characterized a third of Byron’s new recording, and the void of the other guests, especially horn players, made the live occasion somewhat of a basic and trimmed down rendition of the new recording. In audience attendance that evening was one of the recording’s participants and one of Byron’s major influences in calypso (not to mention life in general), his bass playing father Don Byron Sr. Byron’s dad and the three-quarters packed club, over the course of an hour, enjoyed three extended pieces that found Byron’s More Music for Six Musicians group exploring dense percussive jams with the two hornmen soaring over and through the rhythmic interplay between the four other musicians.

Byron’s opening unaccompanied clarinet may have provided a hint to if not suggestion of his next record project--a solo clarinet album would certainly be more than a novelty in his more than capable hands. Without faltering, he played frequently in the utmost register of his instrument. Unlike a clarinetist like Giuffre, Byron explores all the ranges of his instrument from top to bottom. His improvisations are personal excursions into the heights and depths of emotion under extreme tempos and unrelenting support, in particular in this case, from the percussive tandem of Wittman and Cardona, whom together worked as one from beginning to end.

Cardona provided the backbone to both this live date (the first set of the band’s six-night residency), as well as to the recording, and Wittman’s solid musical camaraderie with the Latin legend motored the group through solos, heads, grooves and vamps. Cardona’s work since the 70’s with Celia Cruz and Willie Colon, as well as his collaborations within the last decade under the late Mario Bauza, Steve Turre’s Sanctified Shells, and Conrad Herwig’s Latin Side of John Coltrane, have helped solidify Cardona’s true master status as one of the great Latin jazz percussion maestros of all time, and certainly of his time. The nuances of each finger and beat and Cardona’s overall conga contributions were nothing less than essential to the musical success live and on record in regards to Byron’s You Are #6 ­ More Music for Six Musicians. Kudos certainly goes to Byron for realizing the indispensable ingredient to his new Latin-inspired music mix, as listenable as it was fun and even danceable.