Hans Koller: London Ear

This may or may not be the last album Steve Lacy participated in before his death—it is certainly amongst the last, recorded as it was in December '03, only a few months before he died—but in any event it has another timely significance. In a month when the octogenerian US bandleader Gerald Wilson, fast becoming a national treasure after decades of neglect, has been a featured artist in the London Jazz Festival, the release of London Ear brings the good news that orchestral jazz continues to thrive, with quirkiness and relatively youthful passion, in the UK. (Hans Koller's more recent ten-piece collaboration with Evan Parker, a numerically smaller affair than this aerodynamically designed nineteen-piece juggernaut, but a band which has punched well above its weight in live performance, is also due for release shortly.)

Conceived by Koller, in the main, as a big band showcase for Lacy's offensive and on the brink improvising (to use the saxophonist's own descriptions of his work), Lacy is the featured soloist on seven of the eleven tracks. The tunes themselves are by no means the usual suspects, nor, with the exception of Lacy's own "Blinks," ones you would immediately call out if asked to select material for a Lacy big band project. Four are composed by Koller, with Miles Davis, Ray Noble and—definitely out of the left field this one—Warne Marsh contributing one apiece (respectively, "Filles De Kilimanjaro," "The Touch Of Your Lips," and "Marshmallow," the latter given some very un-Tristano School assault and battery by honorary Londoner Gene Calderazzo).

"Filles De Kilimanjaro," presented here in two versions, one lasting nearly ten minutes, the other about seven, takes up a good chunk of the 69-minute playing time, and barely a second is wasted. Despite the comparatively gargantuan size of his ensemble, Koller retains the essential structure and spirit of Davis' original quintet recording—the egg-on-the-boil, bubbling ostinato shared by bass and drums, the tentative top line, the bipolar vibe of vulnerability and strength—and Lacy and guitarist Phil Robson contribute stonkingly good solos to each version. On the first version—its additional playing time taken up by an inventive four-minute orchestral dissection of the theme—both players stay pretty much inside the score, with Robson sounding at times like Wes Montgomery filtered through Sonny Sharrock. On the second version, each hits a more acerbic and atonal groove. Both approaches are winners.

The two "Kilimanjaro" tracks bookend the album, after Koller's brief, overture-like curtain raiser "London Ear," its blowsy French horn and trombones brass quartet reminiscent of a Shaftesbury Avenue pit band (although not at all jaded). There are strong solos from players other than Lacy and Robson—Julian Siegel's elegantly saturnine tenor on "The Touch Of Your Lips," Henry Lowther's fleet and eager "Marshmallow"—but Koller, happily, allows the ceaselessly creative and unpredictable Lacy to take most of the solo spotlight. How much he is missed today.