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Label Profile: The ESP-Disk Label, Part One [Sun Ra, Don Cherry, More]
Few record labels signify the American counterculture movement of the 1960s as much as ESP-Disk, founded by New York lawyer Bernard Stollman in 1964. Over the course of about 120 albums and nearly a decade, the ESP catalog covered a wide range of music, from free jazz and experimental, unclassifiable sounds to protest folk, psychedelic rock and proto-punk. In this case, "ESP" is shorthand for Esperanto, and most titles had their address and ordering information printed in the universal language. The label's first release, little-known except to collectors, was an album of sing-along folk music in Esperanto, entitled Ni Kantu en Esperanto (Let's Sing in Esperanto). ESP-Disk shut down in 1975 after several years of financial troubles.
Though Stollman licensed the catalog to reissue labels in the 1980s and '90s, it resulted in bootlegging and other problems as well as increased visibility for the label's releases. Stollman gave ESP a new lease on life in 2004 and though there were a number of initial hiccups, things seem to be improving. In addition to reissuing their back catalog, ESP are also uncovering previously unheard gems and releasing new recordings by recent artists like avant-jazz trio Yugunaut and Old Time Relijun bass clarinetist Arrington de Dionyso. Their distribution is now quite good, thus making an overview of new releases worthwhile - the first installment will spotlight three jazz titles by Sun Ra, Ronnie Boykins, and Don Cherry, while the second will focus on psychedelia, Latin Jazz and experimental sounds.
Despite a fair amount of notoriety within the jazz public, pianist-composer Sun Ra recorded for very few "name" labels in the first decades of his career. Most of the Sun Ra Arkestra recordings were originally issued on their own Saturn label, and are coveted by collectors. Apart from nearly-buried releases on Transition, Delmark and Savoy, the first label to seriously make available Ra's music was ESP. Heliocentric Worlds (a two-volume set) and Nothing Is were issued in 1966 and 1968, respectively, and the Sun Ra Arkestra featuring Pharaoh Sanders and Black Harold fits in perfectly with this time frame. While recorded in 1964, the session wasn't issued until the mid-70s by Saturn, and has never been on CD until now. Featuring appearances by Pharoah Sanders, bassist/cellist Alan Silva and obscure West Coast flutist Black Harold (see "The Voice of Pan"), the Arkestra's diverse sonic palette is in full visibility here, from dense, caterwauling free improvisations to spare non-western explorations and liquid big-band head arrangements. But the presence of Sanders in one of his earliest recordings, pre-Coltrane, is what makes this disc historically crucial.
Ronnie Boykins was Sun Ra's upright bassist of choice, and after he left the Arkestra in the early '70s, he went unreplaced - Ra chose instead to fill out the orchestra's bottom end with Moog and electric bass. Boykins could play the high register like a cello and offered impeccable time and a beautiful sound on his instrument, so it's no wonder the bandleader found no reason to even attempt a stand-in. On The Will Come Is Now, Boykins' only effort as a bandleader (and the final commercial LP on ESP), he's joined by loft-jazz scene regulars like drummer Art Lewis, saxophonists Joe Ferguson, Monty Waters and Jimmy Vass, and trombonist Daoud Haroom on six original compositions. The title track is stunning, knotty unison saxophone lines over a 7/8 ostinato bass figure that recalls some of the more sublime moments of Ra's music. The leader's solo seems to get the furthest from the thematic and rhythmic structure of the tune, though it's supported by a bevy of percussion. "Starlight at the Wonder Inn" (named for a fated club in Canada) is a pretty ballad, something like what one might expect out of a postwar dance hall ballad - yet the bassist gets some meaty and dangerous tones out of his axe. Boykins and his group reflect on both the "inside" and "outside" of jazz and come up with some very beautiful music.
Trumpeter Don Cherry appeared only once on ESP, as a sideman on tenorman Albert Ayler's 1964 New York Eye and Ear Control LP. However, he was at the cusp of jazz innovations in the late '50s, working in Ornette Coleman's quartet with bassist Charlie Haden and drummers Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell. Cherry’s own music drew from Ornette, as well as his travels throughout North Africa, Asia, and Europe, and his bands were notorious for sets that blended a mind-bendingly diverse array of material done at blistering tempos. A multi-national band he led while in Paris in the Sixties was one of the most important post-Ornette modern jazz groups, made only more curious by the presence of a former sideman at the helm. On this third volume of recordings taken from Copenhagen's Café Montmartre in 1966, Cherry's joined by Argentine tenor saxophonist Leandro "Gato" Barbieri, German vibraphonist Karl Berger, Italian drummer Aldo Romano, and Danish bassist Bo Steif (in for Frenchman Jean-Francois Jenny-Clarke) on two long pieces - "Complete Communion" (which would appear on a Blue Note LP of the same name) and "Remembrance." Compared to the Blue Note titles or Togetherness on Durium, the live recording here is more unhinged, Romano tearing through phrase inversions as Barbieri's tenor hits the stratosphere and Cherry's pocket trumpet alternates sheet metal and Berber cry.
ESP did in fact make their name with jazz, though much of it falls far from the post-bop tree. It’s only fitting that they continue with improvised music as a strong point in their catalog. This trio of discs, along with albums by Albert Ayler, Burton Greene and Sunny Murray, should go a long way towards building an avant-garde jazz library.
