James Spaulding

[marcello]

I've never been a Bunky Green fan. Maybe it's because of those Argo recordings that I've heard.

But recently I've heard from musicians I respect, that Bunky is playing his ass off!

Here he is at Jazz Baltica last month:

Edited August 12, 2007 by marcello

[brownie]

Vincent, Paris who has not posted here for quite a long time had a page with a discography on James Spaulding at his website

[JSngry]

I distinctly remember being let down by that Storyville debut side of his, becuase like some here, I had been asking myself WHY HASN'T SPAULDING DONE HIS OWN DATE? WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Well, ok, he finally did, and.....maybe like Larry says, it was too late, maybe the "lightning moments" had passsed, never to return. For a while, I was picking up a lot of his latter-day leader dates used in the < $5.00 range and felt that they were priced right. But even then...

Still think (and I'm not hearing any real dissension here) that the Ra-thru-very early 70s run saw him playing at a level worthy of a certain level of respect, but that beyond that, the respect becomes more and more..."professional" in nature than admirational. But I'd not want to be in a jam session with him and get him pissed of or otherwise indignified, because he strikes me very much as one of those guys who could sleep through an earthquake but could waste your ass with the horn pretty darn quickly if you he ever felt like he just had to.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I've always thought that most jazz musicians, certainly those who make up the majority of my jazz collection, were no better than fourth rate. But that fourth rate jazz musicians were bloody good! And worth listening to.

That's why this shit is so fucking expensive.

MG

[Eloe Omoe]

Still think (and I'm not hearing any real dissension here) that the Ra-thru-very early 70s run saw him playing at a level worthy of a certain level of respect, but that beyond that, the respect becomes more and more..."professional" in nature than admirational. But I'd not want to be in a jam session with him and get him pissed of or otherwise indignified, because he strikes me very much as one of those guys who could sleep through an earthquake but could waste your ass with the horn pretty darn quickly if you he ever felt like he just had to.

I've seen Spaulding several times with the World Saxophone Quartet in the early Nineties, after Blythe and before Eric Person. That was a good situation for him , I think, since the other three guys were pushing him quite a lot (even a little too much, at times. especially Bluiett...). He looked like a very laid-back guy, and the very strong personalities in the WSQ intimidated him quite a bit. I guess that's the reason why he didn't last in the WSQ.

[Larry Kart]

\ edc digs Pete Brown! as much as Willie Smith? hell naw but still... even his much later stuff w/Jack Bruce was at least weird. i was gonna throw out another name wrt to Spaulding like... Russell Procope. maybe Spaulding at his best matches Russell in their respectiver contexts? as far as i can tell, no "injustice" greater than that of anyone's existence has ever been down to Spaldeen. he did his thing well enough to get work for a while & gain some affection... after that? maybe hard times, maybe not bu the music... ain't much.

You're kidding about Pete Brown, right? Two utterly different people of the same name, but then again you're just being EDC? Procope? I don't see that at all -- Spaulding was an improviser, Procope a nice sectionman, color-maker within an orchestral frame, though he could play some. The contexts are way too disparate. Spaulding and Irving Fazola? Ronnie Matthews is worth mentioning. Heard him lots on record over the years, always to medium to null effect, then caught him as a side man on (I think) a latish Teddy Edwards disc and was beguiled by his lovely, loving comping and quite good solo work as well. Went around for a while thinking how wrong I must have been all these years, then decided that it's quite possible that both things were true. Which bring me back to Mr. Spaulding. I heard him live one night in 1969 at Ahmad Jamal's club in Chicago, the Tejar, with Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Barron, Junie Booth, and Louis Hayes, and JS took the paint off the walls. One night of glory, and as a sideman to be sure. No doubt it wasn't the only such night and that there were others not like that night.

[erhodes]

Hah...Clem...

I would never use that tone about Spaulding but that's me not him...an affection born out of things that have little to do with this thread. But Clem raises interesting issues...

My first thoughts are, yeah but compared to what (I always like the title better than the tune). This board is full of lengthy threads about people who I find no more compelling that Spaulding. E.g., there was all this all this talk about how Joe Zawinal is a "giant", "bad mf"...I saw him with Cannonball before he went WR. I have most of WR's studio dates. I like the music...I like Earth, Wind and Fire too but I'd never start a thread on Maurice White the giant and not because of Clem, either. I mean, Cecil Taylor is a giant. Period. There are a whole lot of other piano players in the last 40-50 years and most of what is said about them has more to do with the use value that the sayer has for what they are doing than anything else...

James Spaulding could lend as much to a group as Benny Maupin...I saw him back in the day, too...but there are all these posts about Benny, largely, I think, because he played with Miles...which, BTW, I consider to be some of his least important work.

My view of Spaulding is analagous to JSngry's...he can play but I'm not going to the wall about it.

The other piece is about where it fits. Clem, I think, raised the spector of Roscoe Mitchell in his list of what Spaulding is not. Roscoe is one of the great conceptual innovators in jazz post Ornette, Trane, etc...IMO, the last great one. He's also a mf of an alto player. But on the latter piece, there are others right there with him, including some of Cuscuna's screaming pretenders, e.g., Byard Lancaster, who I also saw and who could blow the doors off of most of the people this board devotes threads to (I can't speak to how he plays now). Comparing Spaulding to Mitchell...or Lancaster...as an alto player is a different...what...kettle of fish...

When JSp made all of those Blue Notes there was a little space for someone who was not playing like Cannon, JMac, Lou Donaldson circa the 50's but who was not ready to go out there with Charles Tyler and company...and Roscoe. And that space was on Blue Note and got a lot of play because BN got a lot of play, while most of the alto players were someplace else...e.g., Tchicai and, maybe, early Sonny Simmons, and, maybe, early Ken McIntyre, and Byron Allen...who could play...and, OTOH...Marion Brown, Tyler, Lancaster, Arthur Jones, Robin Kenyatta, Noah Howard, Monty Waters, Roscoe, Jarman, Braxton (1st edition), Ken Mac circa "Unit Structures" (a mf of an alto solo on "Steps")... That BN window was actually a very small space. The only other cats that got in there...after James...were Gary Bartz and Sonny Fortune.

So...Clem...would you crack the same way about Fortune? If you did, I might hear that... Might... OTOH...Tyler? Intersting question, at least. And what's the criteria? That a guy hangs in there long enough to record a string of albums...or that a "concept" emerges...like "Sound"? Except, no one else really "emerged" with a concept like that. So are all of the rest of them just a little better than mediocre?

See, I have little use for JSngry's reference point from the practice of a professional musician...because many if not most of the musicians that are lauded in those terms make music that doesn't move me. But, at another level, I respond when I'm in front of a guy and he's playing...it's about what happens when he puts the horn in his mouth. Not whether or not Sngry can tell me he's "lipping" and that's difficult to do but what I hear and feel. And at that level I've heard as much from Spaulding as I have from people who get much more ink. And I heard a hell of a lot from the "screaming pretenders"...even after Trane died.

I prefer Byard Lancaster to James Spaulding but I prefer Spaulding to Sonny Fortune. I knew someone back in the day who said that Gary Bartz came along and took Spaulding out...basically set up ownership of that little BN ledge where "acceptably out" alto players could reside. Interesting...because a lot of other folks who went to see Bartz around that time said the records were misleading and Gary had a little sound that couldn't be heard over the drums. But this cat...the Bartz promoter...didn't know who Byard was and wasn't including any of that in the mix.

I saw Spaulding and Arthur Jones at Slug's. I preferred Arthur, too, but I'd advise folks to be carefuly about dismissing Spaulding. And here I converge with JSngry. But Byard has just a few, mostly forgettable albums under his own name and nothing approaching a "concept" like...forget Roscoe...Braxton's or Threadgill's or...who else? But..."back in the day"...Byard would have made a lot of folks look like good candidates for the post office.

Clem...I owe you responses on about a year's worth of posts...but I'm too tired and lazy to do the right thing. Don't know how I got here except that I have this image of Spaulding playing in a group with Bobby Hutcherson circa '68 or thereabouts. It didn't change my life but I had no complaints...which was something in an of itself.

[paul secor]

Hah...Clem...

I would never use that tone about Spaulding but that's me not him...an affection born out of things that have little to do with this thread. But Clem raises interesting issues...

My first thoughts are, yeah but compared to what (I always like the title better than the tune). This board is full of lengthy threads about people who I find no more compelling that Spaulding. E.g., there was all this all this talk about how Joe Zawinal is a "giant", "bad mf"...I saw him with Cannonball before he went WR. I have most of WR's studio dates. I like the music...I like Earth, Wind and Fire too but I'd never start a thread on Maurice White the giant and not because of Clem, either. I mean, Cecil Taylor is a giant. Period. There are a whole lot of other piano players in the last 40-50 years and most of what is said about them has more to do with the use value that the sayer has for what they are doing than anything else...

James Spaulding could lend as much to a group as Benny Maupin...I saw him back in the day, too...but there are all these posts about Benny, largely, I think, because he played with Miles...which, BTW, I consider to be some of his least important work.

My view of Spaulding is analagous to JSngry's...he can play but I'm not going to the wall about it.

The other piece is about where it fits. Clem, I think, raised the spector of Roscoe Mitchell in his list of what Spaulding is not. Roscoe is one of the great conceptual innovators in jazz post Ornette, Trane, etc...IMO, the last great one. He's also a mf of an alto player. But on the latter piece, there are others right there with him, including some of Cuscuna's screaming pretenders, e.g., Byard Lancaster, who I also saw and who could blow the doors off of most of the people this board devotes threads to (I can't speak to how he plays now). Comparing Spaulding to Mitchell...or Lancaster...as an alto player is a different...what...kettle of fish...

When JSp made all of those Blue Notes there was a little space for someone who was not playing like Cannon, JMac, Lou Donaldson circa the 50's but who was not ready to go out there with Charles Tyler and company...and Roscoe. And that space was on Blue Note and got a lot of play because BN got a lot of play, while most of the alto players were someplace else...e.g., Tchicai and, maybe, early Sonny Simmons, and, maybe, early Ken McIntyre, and Byron Allen...who could play...and, OTOH...Marion Brown, Tyler, Lancaster, Arthur Jones, Robin Kenyatta, Noah Howard, Monty Waters, Roscoe, Jarman, Braxton (1st edition), Ken Mac circa "Unit Structures" (a mf of an alto solo on "Steps")... That BN window was actually a very small space. The only other cats that got in there...after James...were Gary Bartz and Sonny Fortune.

So...Clem...would you crack the same way about Fortune? If you did, I might hear that... Might... OTOH...Tyler? Intersting question, at least. And what's the criteria? That a guy hangs in there long enough to record a string of albums...or that a "concept" emerges...like "Sound"? Except, no one else really "emerged" with a concept like that. So are all of the rest of them just a little better than mediocre?

See, I have little use for JSngry's reference point from the practice of a professional musician...because many if not most of the musicians that are lauded in those terms make music that doesn't move me. But, at another level, I respond when I'm in front of a guy and he's playing...it's about what happens when he puts the horn in his mouth. Not whether or not Sngry can tell me he's "lipping" and that's difficult to do but what I hear and feel. And at that level I've heard as much from Spaulding as I have from people who get much more ink. And I heard a hell of a lot from the "screaming pretenders"...even after Trane died.

I prefer Byard Lancaster to James Spaulding but I prefer Spaulding to Sonny Fortune. I knew someone back in the day who said that Gary Bartz came along and took Spaulding out...basically set up ownership of that little BN ledge where "acceptably out" alto players could reside. Interesting...because a lot of other folks who went to see Bartz around that time said the records were misleading and Gary had a little sound that couldn't be heard over the drums. But this cat...the Bartz promoter...didn't know who Byard was and wasn't including any of that in the mix.

I saw Spaulding and Arthur Jones at Slug's. I preferred Arthur, too, but I'd advise folks to be carefuly about dismissing Spaulding. And here I converge with JSngry. But Byard has just a few, mostly forgettable albums under his own name and nothing approaching a "concept" like...forget Roscoe...Braxton's or Threadgill's or...who else? But..."back in the day"...Byard would have made a lot of folks look like good candidates for the post office.

Clem...I owe you responses on about a year's worth of posts...but I'm too tired and lazy to do the right thing. Don't know how I got here except that I have this image of Spaulding playing in a group with Bobby Hutcherson circa '68 or thereabouts. It didn't change my life but I had no complaints...which was something in an of itself.

I'm not Clem, but good post. (By good post, I mean that I agree with much of what you wrote. )

I do find that as I get older, I have less time in my life and listening for music that I merely have no complaints about. At this point in my life, I don't have time for music that doesn't change me in some manner.

[Guy Berger]

I like the guy's playing on the BNs where he appears; he would add a little bit of spice. But I'm not convinced that he could carry a date.

Guy

[danasgoodstuff]

Seems to me 'the bar' is being 'raised' unrealistically, if not quite impossibly, 'high' here. And that this has dysfunctional, if not downright selfdefeating, consequences for jazz. And no I'm not particularly in love with Spaulding's playing - enjoy the BN's, was mildly disappointed in what little I've heard of his later work. Still the fact that Tyronne W. got a BNleader date and JS didn't is a little odd, maybe he shoulda done the funky thing - i've got at least one musician friend who compromised one time and refused the next (or vice versa) and got screwed both ways. Although Clem, as usual, greatly weakens his case by greatly overstating it, the Pete Brown analogy is close enuf for me - if I see their names on an album jacket it's a definite, if not huge, plus...

[clifford_thornton]

A guy I'm digging more and more these days is James Spaulding. Besides his fine alto work, he sure plays some nice flute. I already have some of his sessions with Freddie Hubbard. Probably a few other albums in my collection which don't come immediately to mind. What are some other recordings worth considering?

The recordings from the Up Over Jazz Cafe are also fine, on his Speetones label. I wrote the notes for volume two. Second for the Marge.

Here's his website: Speetones

Saw him uptown the other night and he sounded good. He's a really swell guy, too.

James Spaulding interview at AAJ

[king ubu]

Interesting thread here... I quite agree with clem & chuck on Spaulding - interesting colour/vibe, and yes, those long lines have a certain charm in a setting they fit in or add something - I like his part in quite a few of those BN albums.

About Bunky Green, I don't know any of his early stuff, but I love him with his european quartet (Eric Legnini on piano, Rosario Bonaccorso on bass and Franck Agulhon on drums). His sound is huge by now, and his playing is mature, almost overflowing with emotion at times - the kind of alto sound I love in a mainstream setting. Also he's quite a great blues player...

[Eloe Omoe]

About Bunky Green, I don't know any of his early stuff, but I love him with his european quartet (Eric Legnini on piano, Rosario Bonaccorso on bass and Franck Agulhon on drums). His sound is huge by now, and his playing is mature, almost overflowing with emotion at times - the kind of alto sound I love in a mainstream setting. Also he's quite a great blues player...

His recent CD for Label Bleu, "Another Place", produced by Steve Coleman, is quite good and has a very good band (Jason Moran, Lonnie Plaxico, Nasheet Waits). If you don't have it, grab it while you can.

[marcello]

Thanks, I think I'll do that soon.

[sal]

His recent CD for Label Bleu, "Another Place", produced by Steve Coleman, is quite good and has a very good band (Jason Moran, Lonnie Plaxico, Nasheet Waits). If you don't have it, grab it while you can.

[relyles]

About Bunky Green, I don't know any of his early stuff, but I love him with his european quartet (Eric Legnini on piano, Rosario Bonaccorso on bass and Franck Agulhon on drums). His sound is huge by now, and his playing is mature, almost overflowing with emotion at times - the kind of alto sound I love in a mainstream setting. Also he's quite a great blues player...

His recent CD for Label Bleu, "Another Place", produced by Steve Coleman, is quite good and has a very good band (Jason Moran, Lonnie Plaxico, Nasheet Waits). If you don't have it, grab it while you can.

Agreed!

[relyles]

Sometimes when some of the heavy hitters around here get into some of the dialogues such as on this thread it can be a little intimidating to post. Fascinating reading, but I am nowhere as deep a thinker on some of these topics and fear I don't have much of substance to add to the discussion. With that said, I have always enjoyed Spaulding's playing. I have not fooled myself into thinking he is an innovator of any sort, but after listening to him for many years on recordings by Ricky Ford, David Murray, the Blue Note stuff and just about all of his recordings as a leader as well as hearing him live a few times, I can say with no embarrassment or shame that I am a fan. And yes, I have to agree that his new one on Marge with the Pierre Christophe trio is smokin.

It is interesting how this thread has progressed. I distinctly remember in a similar heated debate about David Murray a discussion where someone suggested that Spaulding only played with Murray because it was a regular paying gig and not necessarily because he was enthralled with Murray's music. Inherent in that I assumed was the poster's impression of Spaulding as a worthwhile musician.

Again, he is far from my favorite alto saxophonist and I agree that he has not recorded anything as a leader that can be considered a classic recording that would have a significant impact on the music and other musicians, but that can be said of for about 95% of the recordings and musicians active in the music today.

Edited August 13, 2007 by relyles

[Larry Kart]

Sometimes when some of the heavy hitters around here get into some of the dialogues such as on this thread it can be a little intimidating to post. Fascinating reading, but I am nowhere as deep a thinker on some of these topics and fear I don't have much of substance to add to the discussion. With that said, I have always enjoyed Spaulding's playing. I have not fooled myself into thinking he is an innovator of any sort, but after listening to him for many years on recordings by Ricky Ford, David Murray, the Blue Note stuff and just about all of his recordings as a leader as well as hearing him live a few times, I can say with no embarrassment or shame that I am a fan. And yes, I have to agree that his new one on Marge with the Pierre Christophe trio is smokin.

It is interesting how this thread has progressed. I distinctly remember in a similar heated debate about David Murray a discussion where someone suggested that Spaulding only played with Murray because it was a regular paying gig and not necessarily because he was enthralled with Murray's music. Inherent in that I assumed was the poster's impression of Spaulding as a worthwhile musician.

Again, he is far from my favorite alto saxophonist and I agree that he has not recorded anything as a leader that can be considered a classic recording that would have a significant impact on the music and other musicians, but that can be said of for about 95% of the recordings and musicians active in the music today.

I was that poster who mentioned Spaulding on that Murray thread, and I do still think that Spaulding is a worthwhile musician. Sorry, if anything I said above implied the opposite, but if it did, that might be because this whole thread seemed to spring from the belief on the part of at least one poster early on that Spaulding was an unjustly neglected master. I think he was a quite distinctive player who at his peak (and I think he caught him "live" at what must have been one his peak nights) could take the paint off the walls. On the other hand, he seems to have had a sideman's mentality (no blame there, just the way some players are), and I don't recall that any of the album's he's made under his own name (I think I have most of them) are up to the best work he's done with other people. Also, in terms of inspiration, there seems to have some leveling off over the years, but I'm not as spry as I used to be myself.

[relyles]

I think he was a quite distinctive player who at his peak (and I think he caught him "live" at what must have been one his peak nights) could take the paint off the walls. On the other hand, he seems to have had a sideman's mentality (no blame there, just the way some players are), and I don't recall that any of the album's he's made under his own name (I think I have most of them) are up to the best work he's done with other people. Also, in terms of inspiration, there seems to have some leveling off over the years, but I'm not as spry as I used to be myself.

I can agree with that being a fair assessment. I would add that if you check out any of his three recent live recordings, you might hear some of that paint peeling sound you mention.

[ep1str0phy]

1) thing--"one" might be hard-pressed to name any significant number of hard/post-bop dates, in the BN/early-Spaulding vein, that Lake has made as significant impression with than Spaulding did on Solid, Breaking Point, Components, w/Shorter, and even the later material with Tolliver (and I've always sworn by the New Wave version of "Plight" on Impulse--for me the most compelling thing on the compilation, abbreviated version of "Nature Boy", probably overlong Moncur--and I love Moncur--and all).

-And Lake is a fine technician and emotional player in the proper context, but I've been far less impressed with his contribution to many dates on which he appears (even thinking WSQ with this) rather than the fact that he is on them. Opposite Spaulding's problem, I find Lake most compelling on some of his "weirder" leader sides than where he appears as a sideman, because, honestly, I think Hemphill, and maybe even Luther Thomas, did the "spare BAG horn" thing a lot more excitingly than Mr. Lake.

-When Sonny Fortune is at his most "ripping" he's really just a stone Trane disciple--but in a way that I would consider sincere and gripping before I would just virtuosic, which is just fine with me. He's been fine with Rashied Ali recently, anyway.

-But--the point is more on the merits of Spaulding rather than whether or not he holds up against Lake, Fortune, etc. I appreciate some of the more committed responses on this thread because, frankly--and like what happened on the Murray thread--it's easier to rip without giving due consideration--and probably just as easy to not offend when the forces of nature (JSngry, clem) are having their say.

I've been really moved by Spaulding in the past and present, but I do think that some guys have taken Spaulding's bag and done more with it over the years, and, moreover, I don't really see that there's any reason--the Larry Young date, Sun Ra, and Components excepted, I think--to believe that Spaulding would have shifted his potential into overdrive some time after his iron got hot. The better proportion of what Spaulding has registered on record and live hews more toward a fairly exhausted bag that, for what it is, he can make hay with.

I would expect an Out to Lunch from Dolphy, Mitchell was unheralded when Sound rolled along, but Spaulding was never all that creatively ambitious on his own, anyway. Better for me to love his skills for what they be.

[JSngry]

I heard him live one night in 1969 at Ahmad Jamal's club in Chicago, the Tejar, with Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Barron, Junie Booth, and Louis Hayes, and JS took the paint off the walls. One night of glory, and as a sideman to be sure. No doubt it wasn't the only such night and that there were others not like that night.

Hey, that's all I'm saying.

[clifford_thornton]

I just like him for who he is, nothing more and nothing less... not gonna belabor anybody else's disinterest in his work; I enjoy it as I do Carlos Ward, Dudu Pukwana, (some) Oliver Lake, Arthur Jones, Ronnie Beer, Claude Bernard, Claude Lawrence, Antonio Grippi, Frank Strozier, Byard Lancaster, Byron Allen, Tony Ortega, Gary Bartz... whom am I forgetting?

[brownie]

Roscoe Mitchell... Marion Brown.. Bud Shank (yes, Bud Shank!)...

Edited August 14, 2007 by brownie

[clifford_thornton]

...Ernie Henry, John Jenkins, C Sharpe...

Anyway, sure, I don't know if Ambrose Jackson elevated any proceedings either, but he's for whatever reason a comforting character. Maybe Spaulding's that - for me - on many occasions, but hopefully more than that, too. I think he smokes on those Freddie Hubbard BNs (not as into the Atlantics, more 'cause of the music as a whole). Sure, it might've been a different story if John Gilmore or Wayne Shorter or Andrew White was in the picture instead, but we deal with what we've got. Nothing wrong with hoping for more (and I do, often), but you can't redo those sessions, either.

[brownie]

Clifford, the Ambrose Jackson I knew (nice guy by the way) was a trumpet player!

I was taking that the alto players mentioned in this thread were still living!