By Stuart Broomer

Please pardon this interruption of the positioning’s standard content material for a overview of
a document that’s unlikely to be regarded as ”free” and even, in a few of
elements, “jazz”, nevertheless it has a connection to it, documenting a work that
radically expanded the supplies and strategies accessible to jazz and
considerably insisted on who may make jazz, with how a lot freedom they
would possibly do it, and the place they could do it. As such, it has a particular
historic relevance to the music repeatedly celebrated right here. When it comes to
the sociology of jazz, Mary Lou Williams’ Zodiac Suite (1945)
could be positioned shut to a different work of its period, Billy Vacation’s recording
of Abel Meeropol’s “Unusual Fruit”.

Protest is just not express within the work or its supplies, however as a full-length
orchestral work written in an idiom integrating genuine jazz parts,
composed by an African-American girl whose musical profession was primarily based
totally on the earth of jazz, it was a outstanding harbinger of issues to
come, in addition to a piece of vital distinction. Like Vacation, Williams
drew particular assist from the radical group surrounding Café Society
the place she too carried out repeatedly, together with document producer Moe Asch,
later to discovered Folkways Information, who recorded the unique live performance and
launched parts of it on his eponymous Asch label.

The rating has been restored, and the orchestra right here shaped, by
Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, a faithful researcher
and advocate for Williams’ music and, maybe not by the way, additionally recognized
as a free jazz saxophonist (the drummer is Antonin Gerbal, acquainted from
work with أحمد [Ahmed] and اسم [Ism]). The Umlaut Chamber Orchestra heard
right here is distinct from, although associated to, the Umlaut Massive Band, a
“conventional” massive band, additionally performed by Badaroux, that explores music
from the swing period, together with that of Don Redman. In 2022, Badaroux and the
Massive Band launched the two-CD set of Mary’s Concepts (Umlaut
UMFR-CD3435), first fruits of Badaroux’s outstanding analysis into, and
reconstruction of Williams’ massive band and orchestral music. That set nonetheless
displays Williams within the context of the large bands for which she composed and
organized (Andy Kirk, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman) and correspondingly
contains some improvisers. Zodiac Suite was a possibility to
discover additional the superior harmonic data she was absorbing from the
scores of up to date European composers like Schoenberg, Berg and
Hindemith.

The Umlaut Chamber Orchestra actually is a chamber orchestra, combining
eleven strings, a jazz rhythm part and 7 wind gamers, amongst them
flute, oboe, bassoon and French horn. Even with a conductor, everybody
concerned requires a way of interval phrasing, whereas a number of of the band
members lengthen idiomatic command to late swing improvising, most notably
Geoffroy Gesser, who along with clarinet and bass clarinet part work
turns in a totally convincing tenor saxophone solo on “Most cancers” within the
model of the unique performer, Ben Webster. Trumpeter Brice Pichard,
trombonist Michaël Ballue and omnipresent pianist Matthieu Naulleau assume
comparable duties.

The unique work was drenched in references to Williams’ particular place
within the jazz world as somebody whose associations finally stretched from
Jelly Roll Morton by Ellington, Artwork Tatum, Thelonious Monk and Bud
Powell to Cecil Taylor, actually an entire historical past of jazz piano in her
lifetime. “Libra” is devoted to Tatum, Dizzy Gillespie, Powell and Monk.
Different dedicatees vary from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Billie Vacation, from
Leonard Feather to Lena Horne. The concluding “Pisces” belongs very a lot to
a custom of artwork tune and is sung convincingly by Agathe Peyrat in her
solely look.

Whereas the unique live performance proved to be a disappointment for Williams, with
insufficient rehearsal time significantly affecting the orchestra’s efficiency
and requiring that most of the items be rendered as piano trio
performances, this considerate reconstruction provides a convincing impression
of Williams’ authentic conception and developed musical language.

I’ve beforehand written at some size on Badaroux and the Umlaut Massive
Band’s recording of Williams’ music on Mary’s Concepts, as nicely as
her well-known (or notorious) work with Cecil Taylor. It’s accessible right here.