By the mid-’80s, ECM Information was extensively considered among the finest labels in jazz. Its roster included soon-to-be legendary gamers like pianist Keith Jarrett and guitarist Pat Metheny in addition to stellar mid-career virtuosi like drummer Jack DeJohnette, bassist Dave Holland, and guitarist John Abercrombie, in addition to avant-garde stalwarts just like the Artwork Ensemble of Chicago and Wadada Leo Smith. Much more placing, although, was the label’s signature sound. The sonics of ECM releases have been pristine, as if the music was being created in a proper setting like a live performance corridor or museum reasonably than a nightclub or a front room. ECM recordings have been unmistakably artwork; they didn’t pander to public tastes.
That’s why it was such a shock – if not an outright shock – that in 1986, one of the crucial performed recordings from ECM was an exuberant and reverent cowl of “Saving All My Love,” a tune that Whitney Houston had made a platinum-selling and Grammy Award-winning hit the yr earlier than.
Hearken to Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy carry out “Saving All My Love.”
This was uncharted territory for ECM. However not for the tune’s creator, trumpeter Lester Bowie. Bowie was a member of the Artwork Ensemble of Chicago, and he took the group’s credo, “great Black music from the ancient to the future,” to coronary heart in distinctive methods. For ECM, Bowie had performed on the group’s Good Guys, Full Pressure, and City Bushmen, along with a stellar sideman activate Jack DeJohnette’s New Instructions. Bowie was additionally chargeable for two recordings of his personal, The Nice Pretender in 1981 and All of the Magic/The One and Solely two years later. All of those match neatly on the label.
In 1985, nevertheless, Bowie launched his band Brass Fantasy to the label with I Solely Have Eyes for You and broached new sonic territory for the imprint. Brass Fantasy was comprised of 1 drummer and eight horns: 4 trumpets, two trombones, French horn, and tuba. The lineup recalled the famously inventive marching bands of Traditionally Black Schools and Universities in addition to Military fife and bugle corps, however the repertoire was distinctly Lester. Along with “Saving All My Love,” the band coated “Crazy,” the Willie Nelson traditional typically related to Patsy Cline, and “Blueberry Hill,” the Fat Domino hit.
A twin musical persona
In a 1995 interview with Ted Panken at WKCR-FM, Lester Bowie defined that his background in R&B helped kind the band’s persona. “When we first started, I’d play with the Art Ensemble one night, and Jackie Wilson the next night, then back to the Art Ensemble and an AACM concert [the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Chicago-based collective that nurtured many of the city’s musical revolutionaries], and then off on the road with Jerry Butler or Joe Tex or Rufus Thomas. I worked with just about all of the R&B people during that period.” Bowie auditioned on three separate events to be in James Brown’s band.
Regardless of his work in R&B, his trumpet fashion was jazz, by and thru. His taking part in was marked by smears, blats, and growls. Trumpeter and composer Hugh Ragin stated of Bowie’s fashion, “This opened my eyes to what can be done with sound pictures for solo trumpet.” He regarded the half too: With the Artwork Ensemble, he normally wore a white lab coat on stage, a significant a part of their elaborate, Afrocentric cosplay.
The legacy of Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy
Lester Bowie and Brass Fantasy left ECM after 1986’s Avant Pop, however they continued to make fashionable music a cornerstone of their rambunctious repertoire. Subsequent recordings included covers of the Godfather’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” and TLC’s “Waterfalls.”
Bowie’s championing of fashionable music grew to become an essential a part of jazz all through the ‘80s. Though the dominant development within the style was the rise of the neo-traditionalists like Wynton Marsalis, these exterior the mainstream made thrilling music that usually embraced music that had dominated the charts. The World Saxophone Quartet, a bunch typically regarded on the identical elite tier because the Artwork Ensemble of Chicago, did a recording of soul classics, and piano nice Mal Waldron coated legendary songs by Michael Jackson and Stevie Marvel.
Bowie’s fashion and strategy stay influential at the moment. It’s simple to listen to Bowie within the work of main trumpeters like Ambrose Akinmusire and Jaimie Department. Trumpeter Dave Douglas who based the group Brass Ecstasy as a tribute to Brass Fantasy stated of Bowie, “I feel like Lester gave me permission to do a lot of what I do – to explore sound, to explore genre, to cultivate surprise, and to transform oneself from night to night. And to do it gracefully with soul and humor.”
Hearken to Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy carry out “Saving All My Love.”
