JAN GARBAREK — Afric Pepperbird (review)

JAN GARBAREK — Afric Pepperbird album cover

Album · 1970 · Avant-Garde Jazz

3/5 · 2025-06-04
FunkFreak75

Though listed as Jan's second album, his first with Manfred Eicher's ECM label, this is really an album of George Russell's The Esoteric Circle.

A1. "Scarabée" (6:15) kalimba, cymbals and other percussion play, long notes from a gentle saxophone, guitar chords, all building very slowly--like the discoveries in a detective spy novel. Impeccable sound rendering of music that seems to go for an effect, a setting, more than a structured song. Not the kind of musical listening experience (or even participatory experience) that I enjoy--unless in an Orff music class with the preschoolers and kindergarteners. (8.25/10)

A2. "Mah-Jong" (1:50) bass, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, chromatic and dissonant guitar notes, chords and sounds, percussive play of other stringed instruments (like autoharp?). Intro to a Beatnik sit in. (4/5)

A3. "Beast Of Kommodo" (12:30) the first song that has some structural elements that I can hook into: Arild's adherence to a steady four-chord line of bass chords, Jon Christensen's cymbal and big tom interplay, Terje Rypdal's gentle finger-plucked guitar chords (complementing Arild's bass chords until the seventh minute when the two separate), and Jan's mellifluous and innocuous sax play. Once Terje's chord play deviates from Arild's, Arild and Jon really go off into their own lands (with Jan picking up some percussion along the way). It is truly remarkable how melodic Jon Christensen's drum play is: such a master and virtuoso! The rhythm section reins themselves back in (now playing a different pattern) while Jan picks up different instruments like flute and bent sax notes and Terje begins to express more in single notes and blues-rock chords à la John Tropea and Eric Gale. Overall I find myself really liking this: more for the skills on display and non-discordant melodies the individuals choose to employ. The odd 30-second bass and flute finale is weirdly sliced onto the end for reasons I know not. (22.5/25)

B1. "Blow Away Zone" (8:35) more odd percussion work as Jon Christensen "splits himself" into half cymbalist, half tom-tom player. Terje's unconventional scraping of his guitar strings and odd striking/strumming of the non-fretted parts of his guitar strings takes the lead for a bit before Jan enters playing a crochety old bass sax with minimal care for the initial sounds he's creating. Eventually he reins it in and starts playing clearer notes and runs while Arlid's bass walks aimlessly around the fretboard, but Jan continues to mix in the scratchy, screechy atonal notes while Jon continues exploring his own Venn overlap of cymbals and toms and Terje continues playing parts of his guitar that aren't meant to play pleasant ear-charming music. Around the 6:00 minute mark every one stops to watch (I don't imagine they're drawn to listen) as Jan's screeching goes completely off the charts: sounding more like scared/dying seals, walruses, mandrills, and baboons than saxophones. Then everybody rejoins to contribute their own alien animal language inputs to bring the "song" to a close. The skill level and command of their instruments are extraordinary; the music not so much. (17/20)

B2. "MYB" (1:50) Beatnik bass, soft malleted toms and brushed snare, bent note guitar, and toneless, melody-less sax. Okay: where's the poet. (4/5)

B3. "Concentus" (0:47) like a top notch orchestra pit tuning and coming into entrainment. (4.5/5)

B4. "Afric Pepperbird" (8:00) I can definitely hear structure in this song: a set drum pattern, a melodic repeating bass line, rhythmic and melodic guitar and sax play. Overall, quite an enjoyable and image-evoking music experience. (13.5/15)

B5. "Blupp" (1:05) toms, sticks, and bird-like human-made vocal blips, all syncopated as if played by a trio of curious chimpanzees. (4.25/5)

Total Time: 41:27

As praised and acclaimed as this album is I cannot for the life of me pinpoint why--unless it is The Esoteric Circle's disdain for known forms, sounds, and structures while virtually eschewing the avant garde "free jazz" or "third stream" (perhaps expressing a little nostalgic holdover from the lost era of the Beat Generation).

C/three stars; I'm sure the musical knowledge and skill necessary to play this stuff is off the charts, but this is no music for me--and it is definitely nowhere near anything that fuses "rock 'n' roll" with "jazz" music!