Greg Osby

THE CHALLENGE OF UNCERTAINTY

I had decided to take cover and rescue the entire discography of Greg Osby (Saint Louis, Missouri, 1960) over the years to try to reason the excellence of the last of his works, from those distant and seminal volumes edited by the no less imaginative and advanced record label JMT (back in the eighties, then carefully reissued by Winter & Winter), going through the landing on the major Blue Note in 1990 (the golden years), up to the productions of Inner Circle Music , from 2008 onwards and the release of Nine Levels . The passing of the days has managed to put things in their place and forces us to set the effort of Osby and his people without the need for so much apparatus and so much justificatory parapet. That Greg Osby is great we already knew for decades; that in addition his artistic bet is of a size that is around the classic as a concept (those musics that always have something to say with the passing of the years) is not new either; That it has finally achieved an independence with which to carry out any of its proposals is what deserves to be considered today. There are already legions of people who have ventured to undertake adventures outside the tentacles of the large entertainment corporations, in an attempt to maintain the autonomy and control of their work without any interference other than dialogue with tradition and the encounter with the masters who serve as their guides, as if they had understood that here what matters is the drawing of the soul, not the framework that supports it. See in this respect the companies built by Jason Moran , Ben Allison or the experienced John Zorn , among many others, all of them observers of the new ways of facing the challenge of surviving in turbulent times.

Gone are the days when Greg Osby was associated with the M-Base collective ('Macro-Basic Array of Structured Extemporizations', no less), a meeting place where his friends Steve Coleman and Gary Thomas - to speak only of saxophonists - also came to search for new sounds while exchanging ideas and energies. The Saint Louis native soon saw that new jazz languages ​​should incorporate urban music, as jazz always did in its heterogeneity and fusion, something that came from the cradle, so he did not hesitate to appropriate hip-hop methods with which to try to advance towards a future that seemed to have no ceiling. Recordings such as 3-D Lifestyles (Blue Note, 1993) or Black Book (Blue Note, 1995) represented a considerable exercise in modernizing structures and rhythms, especially rhythms, the philosopher's stone on which contemporary jazz continues to pivot. Ahead of his time, he did not hesitate to give free rein to new genres and integrate them seamlessly into the one that was most familiar to him, but he did not forget his ancestors or his peers who shared a common language. Hence, he was at the forefront of the renewal of the classical look with the release of New Directions (Blue Note, 2000), a dialogue with the tradition of the parent company that was joined by luminaries of the stature of Stefon Harris, Jason Moran, Tarus Mateen, Nasheet Waits (the entire Bandwagon) and Mark Shim, giving the leader his responses on the tenor saxophone. He also didn’t forget his great precursors, from Jim Hall to Andrew Hill (to whom he dedicated the beautiful “Thank You For Your Time” from the album in question), from Joe Lovano to Jeff “Tain” Watts, without giving up on trying unorthodox additions such as singer Joan Osborne ( Public , Blue Note, 2004) or Sara Serpa ( 9 Levels , already in the Inner Circle Music stage, named after the eponymous album from 2002). By that time, Greg Osby and his circular, feedback-driven band were already one of the unavoidable formations on the international scene. Fate, however, had new tricks in store for him along the way. And until today.

It has been almost three decades since Greg Osby decided it was time to make a new contribution to the musical universe of our time, now in the Post-Covid Era, even though it was recorded in 2019. He does so surrounded by new names, in an effort to highlight talented high-calibre instrumentalists who have not yet found the spaces of expression that would do them justice, starting with accordionist João Barradas (in the inventive wake of Gil Golstein), and continuing with the piano of Tal Cohen , the bass of Nimrod Speaks and the drums of Adam Arruda . A quintet that is completed with the voices of Viktorija Pilatovic and Alessandra Diodati , treated as one more instrument, in search of atmospheres and harmonic textures that enhance Osby's work at the front of the formation. Recorded between Philadelphia and New Jersey, the saxophonist has produced for Otzone almost an hour of music that includes the vivacity of “Circular Facets Squared”, “Dedicato” (with an eye toward a tribute to the late Wayne Shorter) and “Minimalism” (the track that opens the album and serves as the work’s title) with more meditative cuts like “I Forgive You” (signed by Becca Stevens) or “Journey” (a re-reading of Kendrick Scott ’s composition ), without the use of the alto or soprano sax inducing one to think about the delicacy or roughness of the compositions, a lesson he learned from the master Coltrane. At times, as in the five minutes of the sublime “Once Known,” the appearance of the voices, which combine vocalese with the song, reminds us of Perrier Street (Sunnyside, 2012), one of the albums by the underrated guitarist Davy Mooney, there with the voice dubbed by Johnaye Kendrick. But if Minimalism resembles anyone in anything, it is Osby himself, who for the occasion has reinvented some of his compositional methods, isolating recurring motifs in his sound territory, a way of avoiding commonplaces and not falling into the formulaic and predictable, while at the same time shortening the length of the compositions for the sake of fidelity to the story he wanted to tell. Because he speaks of history, of fable, of tale ( story ) with all its ingredients. Echoing the master of micro-storytelling, Augusto Monterroso, for whom each passing day had to mean erasing a line, converting the classic adage — nulla dies sine linea — to his interests, Greg Osby has stripped away what would once have been sonic blocks of great density. You get to the same place without so much apparatus, he tells us with the eloquent ways of Minimalism., with a return to the ring as an altist after his shared efforts with Marc Coplan, Andrew Cyrille , Florian Arbenz , Tyshawn Sorey , Philip Catherine, Michele Franzini, Bobby Previte, John Abercrombie and Tineke Postma, without forgetting his teaching career or his theoretical and methodological contribution for the use and enjoyment of new generations.

This is the key to interpreting the saxophonist's new work since the aforementioned and now distant 9 Levels , which without the intervention of scissors and the compositional reimagining would have resulted in a double album that would not respond to the current state of Osby's imagination. The phrase Less is more thus takes on true meaning and honors Osby in a world where egolatry often wins over common sense, to the detriment of true art. The saxophonist has declared that he prefers "the challenge that uncertainty brings, mainly because the return obtained from facing risk is so rich. Music is a progressive and prosperous force, which often feeds on a variety of untapped or unrelated sources. And it is not something that should be dependent on established forms, prejudices or expectations." 

What is a bit misleading is the cover chosen to illustrate the work, in which Martel Chapman shows Osby's portrait with African sculptural reminiscences like a tribal mask. And yes, the simplicity of the lines, the restrained effect and the praise of pure lines are understandable, but jazz is full of that imagery that leads to other places where percussive polyrhythm reigns supreme. The reinterpretation of the logo with the five circles that has accompanied the saxophonist's record label for decades would have been a better option to express the outstanding exercise of restraint that inhabits the universe of the genius from Saint Louis. Apart from the erroneous visual identification of Minimalism, it should be noted that we are faced with a major contribution to Greg Osby's already major artistic career. 

Enrique Turpin-In & Out Jazz