His Name is Alive - "Sweet Earth Flower: A Tribute to Marion Brown"

His Name is Alive - Juba Lee (High Two 2007)

His Name is Alive – Sweet Earth Flower: A Tribute to Marion Brown / High Two

“Ornette Coleman is the same as Charlie Parker, but he did it a different, the opposite way. Charlie Parker did everything that he did based on knowing harmony and chords. Ornette Coleman did everything he did based on knowing how to reach inside of himself and create music intuitively.”
--Marion Brown, 2003 in an interview with Fred Jung on allaboutjazz.com

Though John Coltrane is the well-established hero in Brown’s descriptive pairing of the quintessential bop saxophonist and the original avant-garde innovator, Brown himself, along with other sax players like Archie Shepp or Dewey Redman, have also brought vital blends of chordal improvisation and borderless imagination to jazz. Almost unanimously described as over-looked or under-sung, Marion Brown was an inside member of the mid-60s NYC vanguard jazz movement recording alongside and inspiring/drawing inspiration from Coltrane, Coleman and Shepp. In fact, after relocating from Atlanta to New York in 1965, his very first recording session was for Coltrane’s now legendary Ascension, which is often pinpointed as the moment the celebrated saxophonist emerged as the avant-garde spiritual leader. The other two saxophonists Coltrane brought in to help inspire his own sound in new, fresh directions, Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, went on to well-revered careers, but Brown, though he recorded a number of respected albums over the last forty years (nonetheless for the likes of Impulse!, ESP, ECM, Fontana, Freedom and Black Lion), has remained thoroughly under the radar. Would I have ever imagined Warn Defever’s genre-defying indie-pop outfit His Name is Alive to be the group to pay proper respects to Brown? No, but Defever is an underappreciated musician and composer in his own right, so perhaps it is only proper.

For the last seventeen years, Defever has been experimenting with His Name is Alive’s dream-pop sound, from the found sound and tape loop obsessed 1990-debut Livonia to last September’s Xmmer, in which the band explores a myriad of styles from Afro-pop to folk that shimmer with pristine production. No matter his stylistic interest of the moment, Defever’s music in any of its concoctions is underpinned by the experimental and spiritual aesthetic established by Brown’s mid-60s jazz scene. Music should never be paint-by-numbers or intently confined to a specific genre’s framework to express an idea; it should be the artist’s expression of feeling regardless of predetermined principles, melodic, atonal or otherwise. Maybe Defever is inspired by Brown’s particular idiom in the same way Coltrane was back in ’65 and set out to use this vernacular to push his own musical expression in new directions. Or perhaps he is just a fan who wanted to bring attention to the overlooked saxophonist. Either way, Sweet Earth Flower is one of the most inspired and interesting albums I have heard all year.

Originally intended as a one-off concert at the University of Michigan Art Museum to pay tribute to Brown, the success of the evening sparked follow-up recording sessions from the talented ensemble. Including members of NOMO and Antibalas, this concoction of His Name is Alive pulls songs from both Brown’s initial mid-60s period including cuts from 1965’s Marion Brown Quartet on ESP and 1966’s Juba-Lee on Fontana along with his mid-70s reemergence on Impulse! after relocating to Europe, including ‘73’s Geechee Recollections, ‘74’s Sweet Earth Flying and ‘75’s Vista. Three of the eight tracks are from the original concert, while the other five tracks include two studio renditions of the live tracks and three other interpretations from the nine-piece band.

I would go into the particular approach for each song, but Thom Jurek’s review on the All Music Guide is more knowledgeable and on point than I would ever be able to do, so I respectfully nod in you in that direction. The music is that of delicately toned, almost ambient-leaning non-linear jazz. The players mesh seamlessly: Defever’s guitar work rarely takes spotlight (nor does any instrument really), restraining instead to a barrage of differently approached ostinatos or hypnotic chords; Defever, Elliot Bergman and Erik Hall’s electric and acoustic keys paint lush, detailed and poignant images with their sensual melodic improvisations; tenor saxophonist Bergman, trumpeter Justin Walter and alto saxophonist Michael Herbst accentuate and solo with subtlety, driving each track with modality akin to the more reflective and melodic moments between Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry; double bassist Jamie Satlsman acts as a strong anchor helping retain rhythmic structure whenever the other players sidestep to the outside; and percussionists Jamie Easter, Dan Piccolo and Olman Piedra jump from more pulsing rhythms to ambient hand-percussion accentuation with ease, tying elements of free jazz, African and Latin music into one vibe. Their recreation of Brown’s sound is that of spiritual reflection, sensual exploration and earthy provocation. It shimmers and drones, rouses and soothes. It’s meditative music you can get lost in without ever actually feeling lost, and that may be the best compliment I can pay it.

Marion Brown is still alive and gave his blessing to Defever to pursue this project. Due to his deteriorating health, Brown spends most of his time now teaching, and not advance classes in the detailed improvisation he is most known for, but mostly to children and amateur musicians on the art of musical self-exploration, instrument creation and the innate boundary-less nature of music. As Sweet Earth Flower displays, Brown doesn’t just teach in the classroom; his recorded output inspires and influences similar-minded artists like Defever to produce music just as warm, cerebral and passionate. It’s avant-garde jazz where the soulfulness is not lost in the intention to explore the outside. It’s music roaming free, where melodicism is not sacrificed for the sake of being different or avant-garde, but rather expressed in its unabashed warm spirit. Like the opening quote, both Brown and Defever reach inside and create music intuitively; they are well schooled in the technicalities of jazz, but express music based on feelings alone.

Also, a portion of the proceeds of every album sale is donated to the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF), a charity helping children in one of the poorest nations on Earth. www.nyof.org