Greg Osby is an artist on a quest to satisfy his own high personal standards for originality, breadth and depth. The alto and soprano saxophonist picks up this challenge again on Symbols of Light (A Solution) , and - convening an adventurous string quartet to join his exciting young rhythm section - returns with brilliant illumination.
"To me, the crux of the matter -- the light -- are the measures that we can use to connect American improvisatory styles, West European traditions and other folk arts," says Osby, a 40-year-old St. Louis native, who was educated at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and Berklee School of Music in Boston, and now lives near Philadelphia after a decade in New York City. "Working on this album, I discovered a world of possibilities. It's clear to me that jazz can be fed through other sources than its historical precedents, through collaboration and experimentation, being open-minded and embracing many disciplines. In fact, I think that's the only way jazz will survive. Otherwise, our music is feeding on itself, eating its young and not going anywhere."
Osby is most certainly not one to stand for that. Since he first entered the musical fray in the mid-1970's in St. Louis, his ambitions have been grounded in a desire for new experience, greater understanding and further development. Through his past two decades of study and work with some of serious jazz's most creative leaders - pianists Muhal Richard Abrams, Andrew Hill and Herbie Hancock, guitarist Jim Hall, drummer Jack DeJohnette, to name merely a few -- he has become the embodiment of the restless innovator whose results are definitive.
On ten previous Blue Note albums since signing with the label in 1990, Osby has brought his curiosity, intensity and gorgeous tone to funk, hip-hop and street poetry grooves (on Man-Talk For Moderns Vol. X, 3-D Lifestyles and Black Book), acoustic settings for outward-bound melodies conveying a wealth of vivid moods (on Art Forum, Further Ado, Zero and The Invisible Hand), rigorous re-visions and sheer hard-blowing (on New Directions, Banned In New York and Friendly Fire, respectively). He considers Symbols of Light "a solution" in that it introduces an ensemble he believes is "varied enough to create and accurately represent my sound world in its many dimensions."
"Someone has to shake things up," he continues, "to introduce new conceptions and personify them through sound energy -- not just play the standards of composers like Gershwin, Porter and Kern in slightly different arrangements. Those are wonderful songs, of course, but without extreme reinterpretation, they don't reflect the musical aspirations of the current generation. Meanwhile," he believes, "we have a plethora of other resources that are begging to be investigated. People aren't exploring them, though, so they remain unearthed gems."
That the saxist digs under-recognized master musicians is evident from several of the original compositions on Symbols of Light. "3 For Civility," which opens the album with a waltz-time introduction featuring pianist Jason Moran ("Anything to shatter expectations," Osby chuckles), is dedicated to veteran Chicago saxophonist Von Freeman and pianists Abrams and Hill. "Repay In Kind," written by Moran, acknowledges the incisive forward propulsion of reedsman Henry Threadgill (who also has Chicago roots). Osby's soprano on "M," by Masabumi Kikuchi, and his expansiveness on "This is Bliss," suggests his appreciation of Wayne Shorter. "The Keep" recalls Eric Dolphy's early '60s recordings with Ron Carter playing cello. Osby emphasizes, however, that "It would be blasphemous for me to just bite into someone else's approach. When I attempt to honor someone through emulation, I modify their style radically, to the point of complete
transfiguration, to make sure it's my own."
Osby made "Golden Sunset" his own by recording it initially with its composer, Andrew Hill, on But Not Farewell (Blue Note, 1991), and his admiration for singer Johnny Mathis accounts for his version of "Wild Is The Wind." If such a spectrum of repertoire weren't enough, Osby's deployment of strings -- a quartet comprising violinists Marlene Rice-Shaw and Christian Howes, Judith Insell-Stack on viola and cellist Nioka Workman, - guarantees Symbols of Light a unique identity among current jazz albums.
"I wanted a full integration of the strings into the music's total fabric," he explains, "and not to use them for 'sweetening' or as an afterthought. I gave them melodic and harmonic options, writing multiple staves of music that work interchangeably, so in successive choruses they can choose different lines which all fit together harmonically. I also tried to use techniques exclusive to strings -- tremolo, pizzicato, double stops, bowing techniques, harmonics -- things other instruments don't, or can't do.
"Sometimes I wrote role reversals, like placing my alto line in the middle of the ensemble rather than on the top, or the cello or viola as a lead with the violins at the bottom, for different timbres. Even when they're not so prominent, the strings are essential, part of the mortar holding everything together."
Everything here is substantiated by Osby's working band, including drummer Marlon Browden, who the saxist discovered playing at Small's, an alchohol-free after-hours jazz club in Greenwich Village, and Scott Colley, a sensitive but firm and swinging bassist. "I think of these younger players as being products of post-hip-hop era," he says sagely. "They've heard a lot more music through hip-hop sound collages; they're aware and tolerant of diverse approaches, but deal with the 'jazz' of it from the inside, not the periphery."
Moran, the up-and-coming pianist (himself a Blue Note Records artist) with whom Osby teamed up in early 1997, deserves special note. "I've come to know Jason well," the saxophonist mentions. "We've got the level of telepathy that I normally avoid; I don't like being too comfortable in any situation, because then there's no danger. But there are a lot of detours I take to keep him on his toes, and he throws me curves, too." Their duet "Minstrale Again (The Barefoot Tapdance)" lends this album an upbeat conclusion.
Resolution, though, is a transient thing. "Complacency," Osby says (and you can believe him), "is a word I try to eradicate from my vocabulary." There's nothing complacent about Symbols of Light (A Solution) or about Greg Osby, either. As composer, saxophonist, bandleader, and intrepid trailblazer, he carries cool new fire.
Read more about Greg Osby at JazzSteps.com.
