Sonny Simmons, Francois Tusques, Near the Oasis, Live at Vision Festival 16, 2011

The best album that Sonny Simmons and/or Francois Tusques ever made? Near the Oasis (Improvising Beings ib10) may not be that. It is a kinetically charged meeting of the two at the 2011 Vision Fest in New York.

It starts with a kind of cosmic thing with Sonny on English Horn, Francois at the piano, and that's the finest moment of the set because it puts them both in a place they've never quite been, together or alone.

From there a remarkable look backwards with four bop standards: Monk's "Round Midnight" and "Bolivar Blues" plus the old standbys "Theme for Ernie" and "Night in Tunisia".

Bird, Monk, blues and bop, Sonny and Francois show their roots in convincing ways here. When traditionally out players tackle the older material, it can be quite interesting to hear. Sonny and Francois do most certainly NOT play rulebook bop here. It's the notes they want in there, what they hear, not just those that Bud and Bird would have played. So it has the exhilarating moments where they expand the tonality and widen the channel, so to speak.

It's a worthwhile performance, sure to appeal to Simmons and Tusques fans as something different, a one-off that may never be repeated and has its many charms.

Sonny Simmons Stays On the Watch, 1966

When earlier in the year we spoke of the "two Sonny Simmons's" I never suggested that the first period of Sonny's work was anything but extraordinary, just that the comeback period of Simmons's music often is as well.

So in a timely way, ESP is re-releasing his first album for the label, Staying on the Watch, recorded back in 1966. What's extraordinary about this album? For one thing, the rhythm section of a young yet assured and fiery John Hicks on piano, a solid Teddy Smith on bass, and an incandescent Marvin Pattillo on drums really kicks this band through the paces. They are afire.

Second, trumpeter Barbara Donald is at a peak. She sputters and blazes brassily, adapting the hard bop of a Lee Morgan or Freddie Hubbard and taking it out in her own way. And Sonny sounds just magnificent. He and Barbara meld on the heads of the group numbers and just blaze forth. His playing by this point does not have any obvious derivatives. He has the intensity of a later Coltrane and the angularity of Ornette, but a kinetic firestorm of ideas and his hard, blistering tone make for pure Sonny.

Check out Sonny's eastern-influenced dervishness on the sax-bass duet "A Distant Voice," one of the first duets to be recorded and so a pioneering effort and a foreshadowing of many such groupings to come in the new jazz. Most importantly though it showcases a second side of Sonny's melodic approach, again wholly original and I can say without the least bit of hype or hyperbole, breathtaking.

There are an awful lot of great Sonny Simmons records. This is one of them!

More on The Two Sonny Simmons Musics: Sonny the Great

A few posts ago we criticized the idea that Sonny Simmons, saxophonist and free jazz master, is somehow diminished and unworthy in the second phase of his career. Yes, there is the wonderful music he made from around 1962 to 1970, then after a lesser presence, a second phase of his career that lasts up to today.

The Ayler Records release covered in that post was a free blowing trio date, and I argued that, once you understood the sort of session involved, that it was in no way a lesser Sonny sounding off there.

Today we look at another session, from 1996, and it is of the more ambitious, carefully conceived sort of dates with compositional elements of a high caliber and a free but structured group situation. It's a quartet of Simmons on tenor, Michael Marcus on C-melody sax and manzello, Steve Neil, bass, and ex-Ornettian Charles Moffett on drums.

The album is Judgement Day, and it's still in print, on CIMP Records.

The group is really up to the challenge of playing with Sonny at full steam. Moffett particularly makes this date a burner. He's all over the place and kicks everyone into overdrive.

But it's Sonny the writer-conceptualist and Sonny the sax master that really come across on this very fine sounding recording.

IS he a lesser artist on this date? NOOOOOOO. He kicks blank as much or even more than he did in his first career phase. If you love Sonny, this is indispensable. If you don't know Sonny, this is indispensable. If you don't want to hear this music because you have preconceptions about it, that's understandable. But you will be missing out. And that saddens me.

Are There Two Sonny Simmons Musics? Why it Doesn't Matter.

I've read some journalism that says in essence, "the early Sonny Simmons music is great; the later incarnations aren't especially wonderful." Sonny made some excellent recordings for Contemporary, ESP, etc., from the early-to-late '60s in the "new thing" mode of modern jazz, then more or less dropped out of sight for a number of years. He returned and has made a good number of recordings from to '90s on. I haven't heard them all, but I certainly have sampled a good cross-section.

Today's recording perhaps is as good as any to look at Sonny Simmons in his second phase. It's a live trio session recorded at the Knitting Factory for the 2001 Visions Festival. Live at Knitting Factory is one of those well-conceived download only Ayler Records releases, and it's available at a budget price from their site. The sound is quite decent.

We have 40 minutes of live Sonny on alto with the good music lineup of Cameron Brown on bass and Ronny Barrage on drums. There are lively free barn-stormers and a tongue-in-cheek rap-funk number.

Is this music the same as what's on his first recordings? No, certainly not. It shows that Sonny has emerged into the current scene with the music world around him giving him some interlocking feedback. He reflects 2001 like any creative artist. This live session may be somewhat more offhand than some of his more ambitiously constructed sessions of earlier years. It's a free blowing trio date though, and so one must hear it in that light. The song forms are frameworks, not highly evolved compositional vehicles.

His playing is quite good. And the Barrage-Cameron rhythm section blazes and urges him on.

Is it the same Sonny as the 1960's Sonny? How could it be? It's Sonny in 2001. A different Sonny in some ways, but no less Sonny. It's important, if a little obvious, to realize that the old Sonny is still there to be appreciated, in the recordings. The new Sonny does not negate the old one. If one does not compare but enjoys his later work on its own terms, one cannot but appreciate it.

Is the Knitting Factory recording the best thing he's ever done? No. Most definitely not. It does give you another side of this important creative artist. Perhaps a little more casual, but nonetheless engaging. New Sonny to old Sonny is like New Hawk to old Hawk, new Lester Young to old Lester Young, new Rollins to old Rollins (admittedly, one might want to pick and chose carefully in the latter instance). Each period has something to offer. Forget expectations and just listen.