Cecil Mcbee – Mutima 1974

A landmark recording in early creative improvised modern music, bassist Cecil McBee's recording for the Strata East label is an important document introducing him as a leader from the international jazz-based scene in New York City via his native Tulsa, OK and following a brief mid-'60s stint in Detroit.McBee as a pure musician has staggering technique, rich harmonic ideas, and an indefatigable swing, but it is as a composer that he is set apart from other musicians of this mid-'70s era. "Life Waves" is a stunning piece of composed and improvised music, with a brief clarion horn section setting off McBee's chordal strumming and harp bop drive. Trumpeter Tex Allen's brash lines, the incendiary tenor saxophonist George Adams, and more thoughtful alto saxophonist Allen Braufman dig into hefty but contrasting solos, while drummer Jimmy Hopps stokes the coals. The other premier piece, "Mutima," has a soaring longer melody switching on and off onto a samba palate that is pretty, beautiful, and much more introspective than other wild and woolly cuts. The legendary but underrecognized flutist Art Webb shines on the floaty free "A Feeling,' and the atypical but wholly contemporized "Tulsa Black," a portent to the music that would be made later in this time period by Sonny Fortune, and featuring the wah-wah electric bass guitar work of Cecil McBee, Jr. The two-minute "Voice of the Seventh Angel" sports the disparity of a complex arrangement alongside the beautiful singing of a young Dee Dee Bridgewater, while the marathon "From Within" has McBee performing solo, but overdubbed on two basses in opposite stereo channels, using serene long-toned arco and static pizzicato in arresting sounds that meld into a bridge squawk reminiscent of the saxophone playing of bandmate Adams. In retrospect, McBee's great career was ostensibly launched well before this recording, having worked with prominently with Charles Lloyd, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef, Charles Tolliver, and countless others. "Mutima" (translated as "unseen forces") undoubtedly solidified his stature and brilliance as a major player. AMG.

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Cecil McBee - Music from the source 1977

One of post-bop's most advanced and versatile bassists, Cecil McBee has played with an enormous variety of artists, and is just as capable in a solo or group improvisational context as he is at offering thoughtfully advanced background support. McBee was born May 19, 1935, in Tulsa, and played clarinet as a high schooler before switching to bass at age 17. He studied to be a music teacher and spent two years conducting a military band; he played with Dinah Washington in 1959, and, in 1962, he moved to Detroit to make inroads into the city's burgeoning jazz scene. He joined Paul Winter's folk-jazz ensemble in 1963, and moved to New York with them the following year. McBee found numerous opportunities there, recording and playing with artists like Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers, Jackie McLean,Wayne Shorter, and Keith Jarrett. He worked with Charles Lloyd during the saxophonist's breakthrough year of 1966, and later in the decade recorded with Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef, Alice Coltrane, andCharles Tolliver. The '70s found McBee maintaining many of those connections, while also playing withAbdullah Ibrahim, Lonnie Liston Smith, Joanne Brackeen, Art Pepper, and Chico Freeman, plus leading his first session for Strata East in 1974 (titled Mutima). Two live dates from 1977 featuring Freeman,Music From the Source and Alternate Spaces, followed on small labels. McBee branched out into string-driven chamber jazz on his next effort, 1982's Flying Out. After 1983's Compassion, though, McBeeremained largely silent as a leader for quite some time, returning to his familiar sideman role. In 1996, he formed his own quintet and began touring Europe; their music was documented on 1997's Unspoken.
Other than a 1974 set for Strata-East, this post-bop effort was bassist Cecil McBee's earliest recording as a leader. With Chico Freeman (heard on tenor and flute) as the most impressive soloist, McBee performs two originals and a piece by Hal Galper in a sextet that also includes trumpeter Joe Gardner, pianistDennis Moorman, drummer Steve McCall and Don Moye on conga. The music is spiritual in nature, sometimes quite modal and in the adventurous genre of John Coltrane without being derivative. A fine live set, one of two recorded within a two-day period at New York's Sweet Basil. AMG.

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