Marion Brown: Three For Shepp To Gesprachsfetzen Revisited

It's not too late to catch up with alto saxophonist and composer Marion Brown. Thanks to this excellent reissue and remaster series, you can hear the innovative recordings from this master musician. This release follows his 1965/66 discs Capricorn Moon To Juba Lee Revisited (ezz-thetics, 2019) and 1966/67 discs Why Not? Porto Novo! Revisited (ezz-thetics, 2020).

Chris May's excellent liner notes posit an answer to Brown's relative obscurity. He essentially lays the blame on marketing. Record labels and their PR staff favored predictable one-dimensional musicians back in the 1960s and 70s and Brown was never one to be pinned down or labeled. Judging by the sessions of other artists he played on, John Coltrane's Ascension (Impulse!, 1966), Archie Shepp's Fire Music (Impulse!, 1965), Attica Blues (Impulse!, 1972), and Burton Greene Quartet (ESP-Disk, 1966), plus a series of musicians that he practiced with including Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman, he was considered an esteemed member of the jazz avant-garde. Additionally, Brown would eventually invite Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Mal Waldron, Han Bennink, Andrew Cyrille, Rashied Ali, and Chick Corea to record on his own projects.

Three For Shepp is inscribed to his mentor, as Archie Shepp dedicated his Four For Trane (Impulse! 1965) to Coltrane. The album has three original compositions and three Shepp covers. Brown's eclecticism is evident throughout. His "New Blue" and Shepp's "Delicado" track the New Thing vibe of the 1960s, especially the sounds of Ornette Coleman. Both tracks allow listeners to contrast the piano attack of Dave Burrell vs. Stanley Cowell and the drumming of Bobby Kapp (the original release lists him as 'Bobby Capp') vs. Beaver Harris. That multi-dimension aspect of Brown is evident here with the gorgeous space travel of "Fortunado," the talking-in-tongues "The Shadow Knows," the Sonny Rollins' Caribbean sounding "West India," and the retro-swing of "Spooks."

With Gesprächsfetzen Brown shares leadership with multi-instrumentalist and composer Gunter Hampel who sticks to vibraphone and bass clarinet here. The title track, composed by Brown, feels more like a free-for-all group improvisation. It pairs Hampel's vibraphone and Brown's alto before the remainder of the band enters dividing hesitant solos between the players. "Exhibit A" is Brown unaccompanied working the outside edges of sound and his alto. The ensemble switches gear (again) with "Babudah" which comes from the Gil Evans/Miles Davis canon and "Aba" a cinematic meditation, all to the dismay of a corporate marketing department.