“Freedom Jazz Dance”

[Guy Berger]

I have been listening to the original version of Eddie Harris’s “Freedom Jazz Dance” (from The In Sound) and am struck by how much its popularity in more avant-garde circles was already baked in to the original.  Yes the beat is very “soul jazz”, but the melody is pretty angular and syncopated, not your stereotypical populist pitch.

I think of the Davis version and its offspring as just taking what’s implied in the original and taking it to its obvious conclusion.

Did anybody ever record a version that combines an avant-garde vibe with the soul jazz (or even funk/rock) rhythmic approach?

[ep1str0phy]

The Miroslav Vitous version comes to mind. There's some aggressively angular playing from John McLaughlin partway through. It's definitely in a post-Miles vein, but it threads the needle between fusion and modal/quasi-free jazz quite nicely: 

And then there's this version by the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, which is squarely free funk territory. I love the surrealist solos superimposed over the (very insistent) groove:

 

[JSngry]

Not sure what to make of this one, what it's not as well as what it is;

Before we laugh...

 

 

[mikeweil]

Eddie wrote several tunes with such angular melodies; Mean Greens is my favourite. The part resembling Freedom Jazz Dance is in the middle, before the sesond and third solos. Ambidextrous is another one, more or less a new version of Mean Greens. 

What is remarkable about Mean Greens is that the boogaloo riff is present from start to finish, selfless Cedar Walton plays is all the way through except when he solos and Eddie and Roy Codrington play it for him. Walton also plays the riff all through Freedom Jazz Dance, freeing Ron Carter and Billy Higgins. These guys groove the hell out of this tune!

 

[Rooster_Ties]

OK, but what about FJD’s cousin, “Hopscotch”???!! — from Charlie ‘Charles’ Rouse’s Two Is One — credited to Joe Chambers.

Did Chambers ever record the tune again?

The Two is One version seems to be the first and only(?) version either Rouse or Chambers ever recorded.

Did/does Chambers ever play it live? Or has he ever commented on it?

 

[JSngry]

Eddie was big time into fourths.

[Rooster_Ties]

10 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Eddie was big time into fourths.

 

[JSngry]

No, like this:

 

[clifford_thornton]

I find Phil Woods' version of the tune to be quite a gasser:

 

Regarding "Hopscotch," it looks like there are a few other more recent covers of the tune, but I'm not aware of Chambers recording it on his own.

[mikeweil]

11 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

OK, but what about FJD’s cousin, “Hopscotch”???!! — from Charlie ‘Charles’ Rouse’s Two Is One — credited to Joe Chambers.

Did Chambers ever record the tune again?

The Two is One version seems to be the first and only(?) version either Rouse or Chambers ever recorded.

Did/does Chambers ever play it live? Or has he ever commented on it?

 

Well, yeah, but the groove and feel is kinda stiff and cerebral compared to Walton, Carter, and Higgins.

[Guy Berger]

21 hours ago, ep1str0phy said:

The Miroslav Vitous version comes to mind. There's some aggressively angular playing from John McLaughlin partway through. It's definitely in a post-Miles vein, but it threads the needle between fusion and modal/quasi-free jazz quite nicely

I love this version.  I think of it as more “freebop” than “fusion” - sort of a successor to the Miles Davis version, taken even further.  And yes, McLaughlin is absolutely smoking on this.  (Also: Joe Henderson!)

I need to revisit the Don Ellis version (in 7/4 right?) and check out the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble.

[Rooster_Ties]

I love this live version from 1971, from an obscure Japanese-only various artist double-LP is pretty wild — and it sorta rivals the Miroslav/McLaughlin/Henderson version a bit, at least in its intensity…

I sure wish it was on CD, but alas, it hasn’t ever been reissued since it first came out — and I only know it from YouTube.)

https://www.discogs.com/release/11263311-Terumasa-Hino-Kosuke-Mine-Sadao-Watanabe-Takeru-Muraoka-Masabumi-Kikuchi-Yoshiaki-Masuo-Kunimitsu-In?srsltid=AfmBOoopfdoQqRblY0Di9aE2larfRz7U6bQgjqSdOh8uHaTBO2ZUngMK

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Rooster_Ties