Live at Smalls
Jack Walrath; Abraham Burton; George Burton; Boris Kozlov; Donald Edwards
Cellar Music CMSLF008 (jackwalrath.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-smalls)
Devotees of the titan of music and musical successor to Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, will remember trumpeter Jack Walrath from Me Myself an Eye (Atlantic, 1979), from the final era of Mingus’ epic oeuvre. That album began with Three Worlds of Drums, the bassist’s composition for large ensemble with two bassists and three drummers. Why remember Walrath? It was the trumpeter who gave wings to Mingus’ idea for the work, which the bassist “…noodled into a tape recorder,” said Walrath.
Many years after that epic recording, a wizened Walrath made what I believed to be his finest recording. Invasion of the Booty Shakers (Savant, 2002), with the brilliant vocal gymnast, Miles Griffith. That recording began with Walrath’s iconic piece, Black Bats and Poles, a work that graced Mingus’ album Changes Vol. Two (Atlantic, 1974). Having his song immortalised on a Mingus album says a lot about Walrath, the trumpeter. Mingus didn’t simply “pick” trumpeters, he bonded with the best. (Remember Johnny Coles, and the great Clarence Shaw?)
Like those men, Walrath is an artist of the first order, a master of his instrument. He shows us just that on this brilliant recording Live at Smalls. He is a player of remarkable virtuosity and expressive élan. He announces his compositional provenance especially on the erudite Grandpa Moses, and the brooding Moods for Muhal. Saxophonist Abraham Burton, pianist George Burton, bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Donald Edwards interpret Walrath’s compositions with idiomatic brilliance.
