Search - Clifford Jordan :: Glass Bead Games

A Love Supreme of the 1970s.

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 07/06/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the first and only domestic reissue of the two-LP 1974 release under the leadership of tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan. Fetching skyhigh prices on eBay, then reissued only as a pricey Japanese import, it's small wonder the session's reputation and following exceed the number who have actually heard it. Rest assured that the music is not simply a "cult" curiosity. Although the instrumententation mirrors that of Coltrane's quartet, the music is strikingly different from "A Love Supreme," admittedly a primary inspirational source. Compared to the predecessor, "Glass Bead Games" is less prayerful and more playful, less searching and more knowing, less focused on the religious quest than its rewards. The rapturous intensity of the earlier date is replaced by the quiet energies of the benefactors of the progenitor-hero's journey. On "John Coltrane" the musicians chant the words "John Coltrane, Black Spirit; John Coltrane, first new born," but rather than the torrential, monolithic incantation of "A Love Supreme," theirs is the song of the children of the forebearer, discretely delighting in their newfound jouissance.



The two sessions constitute a revelation on several levels. First, the decade of the seventies was not entirely the funk and fusion, country and disco cultural wasteland it's been portrayed as: it did produce genuinely creative, uncompromisingly "human" new music within the jazz mainstream--and without electronic assists; second, Bill Lee was more than Spike's dad: he's a bassist with a singularly powerful, deep groove; third, Billy Higgins was, as so many musicians insist, a once-in-a-lifetime drummer: I don't hear the relentless swinger that Stanley Crouch raves about in the liner notes but a musician who's more like the bellows inspiriting the collective flame.



Most importantly, the always underrated, now largely forgotten Clifford Jordan was not just a formidable tenor player: he was a creator of the first order, his playing so effortless, unselfconscious, mature and profound that at a time when altissimo fury was all the rage, his fate was to be the neglected, overlooked Lester Young of his era. All the more's the pity that his work on Horace Silver's most ambitious and rewarding album, "Further Explorations," is unlikely to be heard because, inexplicably (even with all the other RVG reissues), this Silver session remains out of print. Nonetheless, "Glass Bead Games" does't require corollary support--it's a self-sufficient work of rare beauty. Don't expect to be immediately or merely "impressed." It "intrigues" upon the first listen. With each successive listening the musical conversation yields fresh new discoveries--playful, profound, inexhaustible, and immensely satisfying.



Compared to a Wayne Shorter on a session like "Footprints Live" Jordan is at once a more assertive soloist and more enabling force. Compared to a Michael Brecker on "Pilgrimage" Jordan is far more relaxed and low key yet paradoxically a more directive and shaping influence. His tone has as much "bottom" as "top," yet he makes the transitions between the two registers so effortlessly that the listener isn't conscious of them, as is also true of the quick alterations in dynamics. The climaxes, rather than spelled out, are merely suggested so that they register with deep and lasting impact on the listener. He's not a man content with a mere musical "dialogue" with his fellow musicians nor is he about to take the initiative in pulling his troops up to his level. Instead he begins to tell a musical story so compelling that his three comrades cannot resist contributing equally to what becomes a collaborative narrative--rhythmically, harmonically, melodically. This is brilliant music-making by a Coltrane-influenced successor who feels no obligation to mime the predecessor. It may be the most significant saxophone performance on record since Coltrane and, providing the listener stays with it for any length of time and repeated listenings, the most successful, satisfying creative jazz recording of the past 25 or more years. Jordan's game--so effortless, unforced, and centered--is simply inexhaustible. It erases distinctions between composed and improvised, soloist and ensemble, narrator and narrative, musical language and verbal language and, most importantly, performer and listener. To call the playing "remarkable" is to do it an injustice: rather, like Shakespeare's uses of language, it's representative and exemplary as a record of one instance of tapping into and then realizing the potential of the vast energy field that is human consciousness.



The 2nd quartet, with Cedar Walton and Sam Jones replacing Stanley Cowell and Bill Lee, doesn't have the freshness and magic of the first--some of the playing is sufficiently "self"-intruding to impede, if ever so slightly, the untampered flow of the game itself. But a single scintillating glass bead game is more than enough to make this recording a singular, quintessential, and comparatively late example of an enduring though fragile art form that America was once not too proud or insensible to claim as its own.



[Be careful about ordering the right copy. The problem is that the program listed with the album on Amazon as well as on most other sites, including All Music Guide, is totally inaccurate. It's a program belonging with a Strata-East release from 1975, "First Impressions," featuring Shamek Farrah--one of those Eastern recordings with mystical incantations and theological aspirations if not pretensions. "Glass Bead Games," on the other hand, is a 13-tune treasure that scintillates with inexhaustible life and beauty in the present moment thanks to the collective skills of the players. Don't settle for less. The 2006 U.S. reissue on Harvest Song is the right one, the first-ever complete release, made available in early 2007 by Jordan's widow. It's available, for the present, from only one source. Go to [...], music department, and do a search. The price, moreover, is more reasonable than the Japanese imports or eBay auction copies.]"

Herman Hesse Must Be Smiling

S. J. Karanja | 10/03/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD has become my mantra. It prepares me to go out into the world each day knowing that music does have the power to change things. It is a righteous homage to Dear John without being a Coltrane-copycat. These cats mean business. Even if Herman Hesse is not smiling I bet you will be when you get an earfull of what Clifford and his friends are putting down."

One of my most treasured sessions

Kenneth James Michael MacLean | Ann Arbor, MI USA | 09/04/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is one of the swingingest and most melodic modern jazz recordings in my library. This obscure session makes my top 25 top jazz recordings of all time.

Stanley Cowell's solos on this date are some of the most beautiful and melodic I have ever heard.

I have been listening to this date constantly for 30 years, and it is just as fresh to me now as it was when I first heard it.

]Highly recommended if you like mainstream, engaging and melodic music. This sessionwill hold your interest from beginning to end."