The Jimmy Giuffre 3: Music for People, Birds, Butterflies & Mosquitoes

Has any musician who is not a pianist explored the trio as a basis for musical invention as thoroughly as Jimmy Giuffre? There have been many versions of the The Jimmy Giuffre 3, from the initial 1950s unit with Jim Hall on guitar and either Ralph Pena on bass or Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone, through the truly remarkable band featuring Steve Swallow on bass and Paul Bley on piano (ECM's reissue of two Verve LPs on the 1961 set is absolutely essential), to this rather different band with Kiyoshi Tokunaga on bass and Randy Kaye on drums. Music for People, Birds, Butterflies & Mosquitoes was released in 1973 by Candid and ended a ten-year recording hiatus for Giuffre. Its reissue in remastered form on CD, LP, and digital download provides an excellent opportunity for those who have enjoyed this master musician's better-known work to see what they have been missing.

Giuffre's work was rarely straightforward mainstream jazz, and this record is not either. But where early classics either incorporated American folk idioms or, like 1961's Free Fall (Columbia) were thorny thickets of free jazz exploration, Music for People, Birds, Butterflies & Mosquitoes evokes Eastern music and (apologies to Tony Scott) might be an appropriate, if adventurous, soundtrack for yoga or meditation. Though these songs are short—they range between 2:26 and 5:37—they are so thematically congruent and stylistically linked that each side of the record feels like a suite.

The first track, "Mosquito Dance," sees Giuffre on flute and Tokunaga on bass stating in unison a Japanese-sounding theme, while Kaye provides snare brushwork and Tibetan bowl-like accents. Giuffre's solo combines some blues phrasing and trills that make this a beguiling hybrid and the insistent gong-like tones make it an effective opener. Giuffre switches to tenor on "Night Dance" for a more traditional blues-based jazz theme that has a touch of film noir to it. Tokunaga is effective here, with a big, well-recorded tone on the double bass, incorporating double stop power chords, fluttery high register runs and solid walking. "Eternal Chant" and "The Chanting," though separated by several other tunes, are related: They feature similar repeated vamps, again voiced in unison by tenor and bass, which are continued by the bass as Giuffre solos effectively. "Dervish" sees Giuffre switch back to tenor for modal incantatory playing with a free bass and drum accompaniment which pleasantly calls to mind John Coltrane's later 1960's work with Rashied Ali on drums. Giuffre saves some of the best music for the last two songs, the longer "Phoenix," a questing flute expedition over a brooding bass line, and the enigmatic "Feast Dance."

Ultimately, the charm of this record is not in any particular tune or theme but in the unified feeling this distinct Jimmy Giuffre 3 evokes: one of questing and questioning, as if seeking a higher power or describing the peace one feel at finding it. It is an easy record to enjoy, and it is good to hear Giuffre playing so well and trying new approaches a quarter century on from his emergence with the Woody Herman Band. This particular lineup made one more studio album, 1975's River Chant (Choice; alternately released on Candid as The Train and the River), and we can hope that this may also receive a reissue soon.

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