Steve Marcus, Miroslav Vitous, Sonny Sharrock, Daniel Humair: Green Line

Several decades into the jazz reissue boom, first on CD and now increasingly on vinyl, one might imagine the bottom of the barrel is being scraped, and that any newly rediscovered obscurities might at this point have been best left alone. Yet so vast are the archives of recorded jazz that diamonds remain in the mine, exemplified by Green Line, a beautiful document of a single session in Tokyo on September 11, 1970, credited jointly to saxophonist Steve Marcus, bassist Miroslav Vitous, guitarist Sonny Sharrock and drummer Daniel Humair. This well-pressed, gatefold vinyl reissue on the Endless Happiness label is a boon for fans of early fusion, just as it emerged from free jazz and incorporated funk and rock rhythms.

The musician's fusion bona fides are indisputable: Marcus worked with Herbie Mann, Gary Burton and Larry Coryell before moving into straight-ahead jazz with Buddy Rich; Vitous Miroslav is one of the premier fusion bassists, working also with Mann, Coryell, and Chick Corea, as well as being a founding member of Weather Report; Sharrock was one of the most individualistic guitarists in free music, having appeared on albums by Miles Davis and Pharoah Sanders before embarking on a series of influential solo albums; and Humair played with Jean-Luc Ponty, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and John Surman, among others.

The diverse music created at Victor Studio by these masterful musicians has been neatly organized on the album's two sides. Side One's two tracks comprise the more accessible material. Humair's "Melvin" is a funk workout driven by the drummer's beat and Sharrock's repetitive syncopated chordal motif, onto which he overdubs his trademark scrabbling guitar solo statements. "Mr. Sheets at Night," written by Marcus' wife Eleanor Marcus, is a gorgeous ballad that features multiple beautiful bass overdubs, both plucked and bowed, by Vitous. This track deserves a wide hearing and would make a lovely addition to many a group's book.

Side Two presents the sessions much knottier, free jazz tracks. Vitous' "Green Line" features an ascending line reminiscent of contemporaneous albums such as John McLaughlin's Extrapolation (Marmalade/Polydor,1969) and Coryell's Spaces (Vanguard, 1970), on which Vitous played. Slowly the band pulls away from the tune's structure to blow in a free vein, with Humair's drumming a highlight. Sharrock's album closer, "The Echos" (sic) is near-total freedom, and fans of the thrilling abstraction of his most unfettered playing with rejoice in this 11-minute workout.

The late 1960s and early 1970s represented a special time for jazz fusion. The music still felt fresh, and the earnest questing of its purveyors was enthralling. Soon, fusion would become slick, dominated by emerging synthesizer technology and increasingly characterized by chops for the sake of chops. Green Line is a gorgeous example of fusion's original flourish, and still sounds immediate more than five decades after it was made.

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