Tenor saxophonists have it tough. As practitioners on jazz music’s most associative instrument they have a long and varied lineage to contend with. As such, achieving a voice independent from the pack can be akin to finding a needle in the proverbial haystack. Every year new acolytes are drawn to the horn, further deepening the reservoir of precedence.
Back when Billy Harper first started plying his trade things were particularly problematic. Trane had only recently passed and giants like Rollins, Gordon and Shorter were still thriving on the scene. Against these adversarial odds he stuck things out and forged his signature sound, profoundly influenced by the masters, but truly beholden only to his own vision and aesthetic. Artistically lucrative tenures with the bands of Gil Evans, Art Blakey and Lee Morgan along with a four-year stint with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra were leavened by stretches of poverty and unemployment. A handful of recordings document these years, but for the most part the saxophonist’s discography was a sporadic affair. Sadly, the situation remains largely the same today.
Harper appears accustomed to the hardscrabble life. Like many of his peers, he hit the road and relied on touring to generate income. Traveling across Europe, Africa and Asia, he played to audiences that were often more enthusiastic than those at home. His packed ledger of paid dues makes the Far East Tour of 1991 all the sweeter and well deserved. Commissioned by Steeplechase, the three-disc set paints an expansive portrait of a life experience that broadened both the band and the culturally disparate crowds to which they played. Harper’s regular quintet made the trek and each date was a proving ground for their mettle under the rigors of extended improvisation.
Eddie Henderson, a Steeplechase leader in his own right, shares the front line, though the rhythm section is somewhat more obscure. Tanksley, originally from Italy and a colleague of Harper’s since the early Eighties, fronts the rhythm section with a Tyneresque command of chordal grace. Baker’s gig history reads like a jazz who’s who with Joe Henderson, Kenny Barron, Dewey Redman and Shirley Scott among his former employers. Arguably the weakest link in the chain, Spears’ strings serve as somewhat dubious, though always enthusiastic anchor, especially on the trilogy’s first entry.
Volume 1 touches down in Pusan, Korea, for a concert that actually postdates the second volume by five days. It’s the strongest in terms of compositional variety, though the fidelity of the recording is a bit brambly around the edges. Harper launches off the stage with a four-note melodic figure on “I Do Believe” trailing flittering trills that sound confident and tender all at once. His extended locution never strays far from the melody, but he still manages to rack up a strong tally of variations just the same, interspersed with brusque hard-bitten honks. Henderson comes off as a model of calm and gentility by comparison at first; loosing gauzy notes and only tapering his tone in short brassy bursts for emphasis. Showing yet another facet of the prismatic quintet, Tanksley builds her solo on the backs of resplendent right hand arpeggios while Spears corpulently amplified bass stops up the cracks. For his turn, the bassist gives a valiant effort, but seems slightly amiss and ends up tangling a few of his figures despite Tanksley and Harper’s supportive accents.
Coltrane’s “Countdown” is a simultaneous cover and tribute to the legendary saxophonist. Harper jockeys through the tricky changes at such an advanced speed that the minutes melt away in the seeming blink of an eye. Baker’s taut, but responsive traps play, which is the saxophonist’s sole support for the first track’s half, is another reason behind the absorbing dissolution of time. Tanksley’s “Dance in the Question” opens with Baker’s sliding stated beat and a stout bit of piano thundering from the composer. Harper and Henderson riff robustly above, before dispersing into solo statements starting with the trumpeter’s strident showing atop a descending staircase of chords.
Harper waits in the wings for just the right moment to pounce, leaping in on the strength of a sinewy wail that rises and falls through registers in the throes of a passionate release. Tanksley’s response is awash with expressionistic colors and clusters, her tensile left hand pounding out thematic anchors as her right dances widely and freely. Baker’s cymbal splashes become more splenetic, mixing with tumbling snare rolls to a choppy climax that signals the return of the band. Through it all Spears is mostly lost in the fray and left to cling to the pianist’s lines in order to avoid being completely subsumed.
