Blue Note, in conjunction with the Jazz Detective Zev Feldman, Jack, and Lydia DeJohnette, have unearthed one of the most explosive jazz recordings heard in recent years with Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs. Four icons of jazz, tenorist Joe Henderson, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Henry Grimes, and a very young and most impressive drummer, Jack DeJohnette. performed at the long-shuttered NYC jazz shrine, Slugs’ Saloon in 1966. Joe Lovano confessed that at one point, he just had to turn it off and catch his breath because of its white-hot intensity. Several terrific archival albums are coming in the next week or so, but none match the energy of this one. (Hint: Charles Tolliver comes very close, though).
Noted jazz journalist Nate Chinen has a most concise summary “…captures the crackling push-pull current of its time – a moment when jazz practice at its highest levels felt both grounded and volatile …Each of the brilliant players here was operating as a sensitive instrument. Each, in his own way, was also at a pivotal juncture in his career, whirling through a cycle of endings and beginnings.”
To best explain that last sentence, Henderson( 29) had just abruptly left the Horace Silver Quintet after a two-year tenure. And, of course, Tyner (then 28) had left the John Coltrane Quartet after Meditations. Tyner played on the 1965 Henderson album In N’ Out and on Henderson’s debut as a leader, Page One. They also worked together on four tracks for Lee Morgan’s Delightfulee. DeJohnette was only 23 but had already appeared on Jackie McLean’s Jackknife and as a member of Charles Lloyd’s 1966 lauded quartet. Grimes (then 31) had worked with greats from Sonny Rollins to Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, and the avant-gardists Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, and Don Cherry. He was part of the bass-drum tandem with Roy Haynes On Tyner’s trio album Reaching Forth.
At the time audio technician Orville O’Brien taped many sessions at Slugs with his portable Ampex reel-to-reel tape recorder. Fortunately, DeJohnette, the only living member of this quartet, had requested a copy of that set of seven-inch reel-to-reels, which he had kept in his archive for over half a century. Recent advances in mixing and mastering technology have brought us superior audio quality.
The album has only five tracks stretching across the 2-CD/2-LPs. Henderson’s “In N’ Out” runs for almost 27 minutes, and the all-out stormy “Taking Off,” the subject of Lovano’s ‘I need a pause’ at merely the 11-minute mark, extends consistently to 28 with a monstrous DeJohnette solo. The album begins with the former, an aptly titled capsule of the times when jazz musicians were expected to play both ‘in’ and ‘out.’Henderson blows ferociously for twelve minutes, while Tyner’s turn is as lengthy and intense before the quartet takes it out, with DeJohnette supplying the exclamation point. Henderson has a style that lies somewhere between Coltrane and Rollins, and he is deeply rooted in the blues. His solos here remind me of that question to Coltrane when asked why his solos were so long, with his response, “I have a lot to say.” “We’ll be Together Again” at 14 minutes is the lone standard with Tyner’s arpeggiated intro, Henderson’s faithful, then whimsical twist on the melody, a gorgeous, increasingly bright solo from Tyner, a turn from Grimes, and a re-entry from Henderson.
Tyner’s “The Believer” calms it down slightly from “Taking Off’ with a flowing, simple melody executed at a modest tempo. Henderson” “Isotope,” another mid-tempo variation on the blues, closes with just Henderson and Tyner soloing without any trades with their rhythm partners. It stays pretty faithful to Henderson’s studio version heard on 1964’s Inner Urge.
As with any Zev Feldman project, there is an extensive booklet with Interviews and rare photos, including commentary from DeJohnette, Jason Moran, Lovano, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Nasheet Waits, and Terri Lyne Carrington. Regarding the recording itself, O’Brien is also the engineer behind Freddie Hubbard’s The Night of the Cookers, Charles Tolliver’s Music Inc, and Alice Coltrane’s Journey to Satchidananda, all classics.
Relentlessly volcanic and at times lyrical, Force of Nature is a ‘must hear.’
