Joe McPhee Po Music - Oleo

Hatology 579

Encounters with the electric guitar often conjure up my favorite comic book quotation. Aged Uncle Ben regaling post-spider bite Peter Parker with the adage: “with great power comes great responsibility.” Possibly Stan Lee’s most prescient pearl of wisdom. In this day and age of effects boxes, flanging pedals and Midi trickery any Average Joe can make his axe sound like an orchestra of instruments both known and arcane. The temptation to allow accoutrements to overshadow artistry is sometimes impossible for a plectrist to resist.

The first time I spun Oleo in its original cd incarnation, I arrived at the immediate (& it turns out presumptuous) conclusion that Raymond Boni had broken this cardinal rule. His general irreverence and flamboyant use of dive-bombing Doppler loops and flameout arpeggiations on the opening reading of Rollins’ sacred title track felt blasphemous to my orthodoxy-shackled ears. I barely finished the first cut before shelving the disc for the better part of a summer. The new Hatology edition of the album pokes copious holes in my initial Swiss cheese opinion. Far from a fret-foisting wanker, Boni is the blasting cap to the dynamite that is this group.

Andre Jaume on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone joins McPhee’s pocket cornet and tenor saxophone in the front line. Francois Mechali on beautifully miked double bass completes the ensemble on the first seven compositions, and compositions they are. Pieces like spine-tinglingly mellifluous “Pablo” and “Astral Spirits” encapsulate McPhee’s ecumenical marriage of jazz and European chamber music forms. His own liners describe the concept- in language I can’t help likening to Ornette’s explanations of harmelodics- of coming at musical structures from lateral vantages. Not obliterating axioms, but finding the crevices to inculcate new ideas within them. It’s in gorgeous evidence on the two versions of “Oleo” where Newk’s breakneck bebop theme still holds sway, but as springboard for expectation-bucking improvisations from all four men. It’s a coup McPhee and Mechali’s repeat on the brief but lushly realized study of Benny Golson’s “I Remember Clifford.”

Despite the theoretical basis behind the music’s construction there’s very little that feels academic or sterile about the end product. McPhee’s fabled emotive honesty is blooms with full force. Mechali’s arco solo on “Pablo” cross-hatched with flamenco filagrees from Boni’s hummingbird pick keeps any notions of egghead artifice at arms length. The leader’s Spanish tinged-tenor and Jaume’s bass clarinet drones continue to combat conceit. There’s even room for Milesian funk forwarded on the rubberball bass pops from Mechali that pepper “Future Retrospective.”

Wrapping it up, I was wrong and the music is right. This remains one of McPhee’s most eclectically adventurous outings and it sounds better than ever with a new Peter Pfister polish. Boni may never have heard of Uncle Ben, but he clearly learned the lesson originally imparted to young Parker long ago.

~ Derek Taylor