Keith Tippett/Larry Stabbins/Louis Moholo - Tern

UMS/Atavistic 245

I’d been a huge fan of free jazz since first encountering it in my late teens. At first, of course, I was pretty indiscriminating, finding everything in the genre to be amazing, exciting, etc. which, compared to what I’d heard previously, it certainly was. I’d always retained a love of purely melodic music, including that from the jazz tradition, and as time went on, more and more I found myself thinking that there were certain practitioners of free jazz who it seemed to me were working against their basic nature, that they’d be better served concentrating on song variations rather than free improv. This isn’t “rating” them higher or lower, simply acknowledging what I felt to be their strengths. As free playing became the decided fashion in certain circles in recent years, I’ve increasingly sat at shows saying to myself, “Jeez, just play some songs, guy. You’re much, much better at that than free playing where (for instance) you have no idea when to shut up.”

These were the kind of thoughts going through my head when listening to the greater portion of the recording at hand. I enjoy Tippett greatly when in a compositional or “romantic” improv mode (the former, for example, leading Centipede, the latter in some of his duos with his wife). As a free, would-be high-energy improviser, he almost invariably falls into bombast and, most importantly, rarely seems to understand that he needn’t be constantly playing, that he might do himself a favor by simply waiting until he actually has something to contribute before doing so. Moholo was responsible for a single favorite album of mine (one that desperately needs re-issuance on disc), his awesome “Spirits Rejoice!” on Ogun that combined the finest of London’s improv community (including Tippett) with stunningly gorgeous, South African derived thematic material. His work with the Blue Notes is similarly fine, driving forward a group that could be as loose or tight as required but which always based its creations in song-form, however abstracted. In purely free settings, though, he seems fairly indistinguishable, striking me as competent to be sure, but over-active and “talky”. More on Stabbins later.

This disc is a re-issue of a double LP on FMP with a single track (“Shield”) excised for space considerations. A live recording from the 1982 Total Music Meeting, it features a 46-minute main performance (the title piece) and two other tracks. Much of the long piece, ‘Tern’, consists of hesitant exploration, the trio plodding about trying to find its way. All well and good except you get the sense of three individuals clamoring for attention and operative power: “This way!” “No, this way!” Stabbins is the worst offender throughout. I’m not very familiar with his work prior or subsequently, but his contributions here almost inevitably drag things down a muddy side road with some severely uninspired playing; imagine combining third-rate Coltrane with second-tier Evan Parker and you’re close. On occasion, Tippett and Moholo get a little something going, sounding natural and unforced and propelling themselves into a fluid cadence, but though these are easily the highlights of the disc, they’re all too rare. Tippett introduces some slight thematic material resulting in lackluster elaborations of same from Stabbins, provides some aural variation by tossing metallic objects into his piano and playing it in “prepared” fashion and Moholo provides some vocal interjections, but there’s simply a sense of routine about the whole affair, little notion of serious listening to each other and, above all, no comprehension of quiet, of not playing if you’ve nothing to say. This non-stop glossolalia can be made to work, of course, if you have musicians of the caliber of, say, Cecil Taylor, who consistently have amazing ideas coursing out of their brains but it’s a damn hard thing to pull off otherwise, at least from my current vantage point. On the other hand, for those Tippett fans who believe he can do no wrong, ‘Tern’ is likely to provide some amount of excitement.

The 19-minute “Mania/Dance” might be the highlight of the disc, at least the Tippett/Moholo portion where, as in “Tern”, they manage to get a nice, roiling flow going and you’re almost reminded of a Taylor/Cyrille exchange. Unfortunately and inevitably, Stabbins steps in and things quickly become concrete-bound although it ends nicely enough in a kind of Marion Brown mode, light soprano over a prepared piano that sounds mbira-like. The final piece uses a melodic line that sounds very much written (although I’ve been unable to locate another Tippett or Moholo composition by the title, “The Greatest Service”) and, at first blush, you could almost convince yourself you’re hearing a lovely old McCoy Tyner song with a descending, anthemic line that conveys spiritual strength and hope. Still, the trio heaps more bluster on the piece than it can comfortably bear and it ends up a mixed success.

As I said above, I’m sure Tippett aficionados will find much to enjoy herein but to these old ears, too much of it comes off as a loud, fairly impolite conversation in which each participant is sure they have the correct argument and don’t care to listen very intently to each other, much less appreciate the music of the room they’re in.