Frank Lowe - Exotic Heartbreak (Soul Note, 1981)

 

This post is by Dan

Frank Lowe (ts); Butch Morris (c); Amina Claudine Myers (p); Wilbur Morris (b); Tim Pleasant (d)

Recorded October 22 and 23, 1981

Frank Lowe emerged in the 1970s avant garde as a forceful raw voice on the tenor saxophone. Working with players like Rashied Ali, Billy Bang, Joseph Jarman, and William Parker, he fashioned a direct and passionate group sound and solo style. In the 1980s, he harnessed the avant garde tendencies and produced, in my opinion, his best work. Two albums in particular on the Soul Note label - Exotic Heartbreak and Decision in Paradise - illustrate perfectly how elements of "free" music can be deployed within more conventional settings, i.e., quintets and sextets with familiar instrumentation. I chose to include both Exotic Heartbreak and Decision in Paradise as favorites of the 1980s. Heartbreak earns bonus points for the appearance of an entire band of unfairly neglected artists.

To revisit one of the motivations for this blog (see the earlier post "Why the 1980s?"), the 80s supposedly witnessed a resurgence of traditional jazz, led by Wynton Marsalis and other neo-traditionalists. The recordings made by Lowe, however, don't return to anything familiar unless you just look at the instrumentation. The group assembled for Exotic Heartbreak "looks" like an early version of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers but it "sounds" nothing like them. The tunes are all written by Lowe except for the opening "Perfection," which is a rare Ornette Coleman tune. Each composition affords plenty of freedom within loose arrangements. The soloists rarely scream or wail, but they don't play anything politely either. This is good honest artistic expression whose roots would be hard to trace. In short, these artists are creating NEW jazz, not recreating old jazz.