John Surman

“Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop - April 1969”

(Cuneiform, CD + DVD)

John Surman (baritone & soprano saxes) / Alan Skidmore (tenor sax, flute) / Ronnie Scott (tenor sax) / Mike Osborne (alto sax) / Malcolm Griffiths (trombone) / Erich Kleinschuster (trombone) / Kenny Wheeler (trumpet, flugelhorn) / Fritz Pauer (piano) / Harry Miller (bass) / Alan Jackson (drums).

This excellent CD+DVD package, which documents an early session by British saxophonist John Surman, was recorded in a Hamburg TV studio in 1969. It follows the earlier release on the same label of “Way Back When”, a previously unissued session dating from some six months later.
Those six months saw some dramatic changes in Surman’s music. In contrast to the exploratory electric fusion of “Way Back When”, “Flashpoint” is firmly rooted in acoustic hard-bop and clearly informed by the classic John Coltrane Quartet, although some of the assembled artists’ solos reflect the heat of the European free jazz fire-storm exemplified by Peter Br?tzmann’s “Machine Gun”, recorded just a year earlier.

As anyone familiar with Cuneiform’s “Soft Machine, 1973 NDR Workshop” package will know, the NDR production style is unfussy, and places its emphasis squarely on the music. The brass and reeds players sit in a crescent facing the piano and rhythm section, allowing the multiple TV cameras to circle the nine players in order to focus on individuals. The DVD sound and (monochrome) vision are of excellent quality, and the between takes conversation among the musicians is kept brief enough to give a nice insight into the personalities at play while adding only ten minutes to the overall playing time. There is also a brief series intro before the main event, but there is no presenter or voice-over to disturb proceedings, so the audio content of CD and DVD are otherwise identical. The CD is nice to have though, if only in order to upload the audio to a music library, or to play in the car. 

The selection of the ensemble and the music they would perform was mostly Surman’s. In his informative comments in the liner notes, he recalls that with the exceptions of the Vienna-based players Kleinschuster and Pauer, and of Ronnie Scott, who were all suggested by the Jazz Workshop series’ producer, the majority of the ensemble were all familiar to one another. Kenny Wheeler was the other exception, and was Surman’s “special choice” for the date, since they had not previously played together. That was a good call. Wheeler’s bold but somewhat plaintive tone helps to bridge the forceful playing of John Surman, Alan Skidmore and Mike Osborne with the more lyrical styles of Ronnie Scott and Erich Kleinschuster. Also, for anyone familiar with Wheeler today, one of the incidental pleasures of the DVD will be to see that his demeanour was habitually quizzical even back in ?69.

Surman picked a nicely rounded set, with three of the five compositions being his own, plus one apiece from Kleinschuster and Pauer. Surman’s “Mayflower” is a great one to start with, being a bright up-tempo kicker that has Alan Jackson laying down a snappy polyrhythmic swing very much in Elvin Jones fashion. The partnership of Jackson with ex-Blue Notes bassist Harry Miller is inspired: Miller’s playing has a plummy, vivid resonance and, his pulse being emphatic yet pliable, an uplifting positivity. Together they switch effortlessly between passages played freely and passages in time with the soloists, acting to cushion the brassy attack of the extended front-line even as they push everything along. Over their impetus Surman immediately imposes his authority as bandleader with a blazing opening solo. This inspires pianist Fritz Pauer to follow up with a lengthy narrative solo of his own.

“Once Upon a Time”, also by Surman, is dedicated to Alan Skidmore’s then-new daughter, and the piece is dominated by a long, superb tenor sax solo by Skidmore which goes through a range of emotions, mostly pretty intense. Kenny Wheeler balances the mood with a fine solo before Surman rounds things out on baritone.

Erich Kleinschuster’s “Puzzle” signals a dramatic shift in mood. Surman’s compositions marry strong melodic themes to carefully considered charts, which nonetheless leave plenty of scope for interpretation. Kleinschuster has been more formally ambitious. His complex piece is founded on driving unison riffs, with Wheeler’s trumpet taking the harmonic lead, before easing up to allow solo space that is dominated by the trombonists’ contrasted styles. Kleinschuster goes first, taking some of the heat out of the performance with a thoughtful, intricate meditation. Malcolm Griffiths, up next, opts instead for a rip-snorting, high-octane, slide-pumping blow-out.

“Gratuliere” was bought to the session by Fritz Pauer. It has a lilting melody, a close cousin to Coltrane’s version of “The Inchworm” perhaps, and it’s an ideal vehicle for Surman’s soprano. A subsequent shift to baritone sets up a wonderfully musical bass solo from Miller. Pauer takes his second extended solo on this number, during which he sounds (and looks) rather self-conscious. It’s the only hint of unease of the entire performance.

The opening of the set’s closing number, Surman’s “Flashpoint”, drops the ensemble into glorious free-fall before levelling out into a passage of hard-driving, pugnacious riffing as a prelude to final opportunities for the saxophonists primarily, and Surman foremost among them, to stretch out and blow.

After this session Surman’s art would progress rapidly. Soon after recording the previously mentioned “Way Back When” he would get together with Barre Phillips and Stu Martin to début The Trio. But “Flashpoint” is no footnote to his career; indeed retrospectively it seems well named. Having been recorded at the cusp of the transition from the immediate post-Coltrane era to the age of electric jazz, “Flashpoint” blends the freshness of inspiration with a significant sense of cultural stock-taking. It’s a vital document, and it still sounds exciting more than forty years later.

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