Elvin Jones: Revival: Live At Pookie’s Pub

A welcome addition to Elvin Jones' catalogue, the previously unissued 2 x CD / 4 x LP Revival: Live At Pookie's Pub was recorded in New York in July 1967. The gig was just two weeks after the passing of John Coltrane, with whom Jones had played from 1960 to 1966. Jones' quartet includes the gritty but underrated tenor saxophonist Joe Farrell, who had the unenviable job of standing in Coltrane's shadow. But he rises to the occasion magnificently. Jones himself is on fire, his default position.

The tapes were unearthed and co-produced for release by jazz archaeologist Zev Feldman, who has previously been responsible for such treasures as Albert Ayler's 4 x CD / 5 x LP Revelations: The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings (Elemental, 2022) and Lee Morgan's 8 x CD / 12 x LP The Complete Live At The Lighthouse (Blue Note, 2021). As with all Zeldman's projects, Revival comes with optimised sound and an extensive booklet. This one includes interviews and statements by drummers Alvin Queen and Michael Shrieve, pianist Richie Beirach and Jones alumni, saxophonists Pat LaBarbera and Dave Liebman and bassist Gene Perla.

Although he recorded six albums with Jones, Farrell, who passed prematurely in 1986, is probably best remembered as a member of Chick Corea's Return to Forever and for his association with Creed Taylor's CTI label. His tenor is boisterous throughout the mostly high octane Revival, and he also turns in two lovely flute solos on the Great American Songbook covers, "My Funny Valentine" and "Softly As In A Morning Sunrise," (which is given an altogether gentler treatment than it received from Coltrane and Jones on Coltrane's classic quartet's 1962 Impulse! album Live At The Village Vanguard).

The lineup is completed by pianist Billy Greene and bassist Wilbur Little, both solid but unremarkable players. Larry Young, the Hammond organist who in the 1960s most memorably absorbed Coltrane's harmonic innovations, takes over the piano stool for a relatively out treatment of Jimmy Heath's "Gingerbread Boy."

Jones is sometimes likened to Art Blakey. Certainly, both musicians could drive a band like few others, but Jones was a more shamanistic player than Blakey. A closer comparison might be with Ginger Baker, who like Jones could generate forward motion without relentlessly emphasising the beat, but by orbiting it, too. Unlike Baker, however, Jones was blessed with an amiable nature, however many sails to the wind he might be (see the YouTube clip below).

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