Featuring:
Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre - tenor saxophone, clarinet
Malachi Thompson - trumpet
Milton Suggs - electric bass
Alvin Fielder - drums
| 1. Unidentified Title I | 13:58 |
| 2. Unidentified Title II | 16:04 |
| 3. Unidentified Title III |
12:36 |
Bill Shoemaker - Point Of Departure
Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre’s is a perplexing, sad story. In the mid to late 1960s, he was in the thick of the teeming Chicago scene. Not only was he an early member of the AACM, playing in Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band and contributing to both the pianist’s Levels and Degrees of Light and Roscoe Mitchell’s Sound, he worked with everyone from George Freeman to J.B. Hutto and His Hawks. John Litweiler, McIntyre’s most tenacious advocate, led his notes to Humility in the Light of Creator, McIntyre’s stunning 1969 Delmark debut, by proclaiming him “a visionary of our times.”
McIntyre joined the AACM exodus to New York in the 1970s and thrived for several years. He taught at Creative Music Studio, where he recorded Kalaparusha with Karl Berger, Jack DeJohnette, and others for Denon. In 1975, he played on For Players Only, Leroy Jenkins’ ambitious large ensemble project issued by the JCOA. “Jays,” recorded with Chris White and Juma Santos (another CMS colleague), was the first track on the first of five volumes documenting the 1976 “Wildflowers” festival at Studio Rivbea. By the end of the decade, McIntyre was touring Europe at the helm of his own groups, recording notable albums like Peace and Blessings for Black Saint.
Yet, the bottom fell out on McIntyre in the 1980s. Drug addiction is the commonly cited culprit that saw him reduced to sustaining himself largely by playing on the streets; however, that does not fully explain why McIntyre was marginalized when his AACM contemporaries, in essence, were bankable. The short answer is that loft jazz had its moment, gigging at Rivbea and other grassroots venues was not economically sustainable, and, for whatever reason, Europe was not an option. By the time McIntyre assumed the mantle of the elder emerging from the wilderness at the turn of the century, he simply could not reassert his initial stature, despite solid recordings with The Light – Ravish Momin and Jesse Dulman – for Delmark and CIMP. He died in poverty in 2013.
Live from Studio Rivbea, July 12, 1975 makes a very persuasive case that McIntyre merits a place among prominent post-Coltrane tenor saxophonists, his searing lines, squalling vocalizations, and avant-gutbucket flourishes fitting in among Sam Rivers and Frank Lowe. McIntyre’s three untitled compositions on this date are sturdy, well-constructed blowing vehicles that withstood the terrific centrifugal force created by his quartet with trumpeter and AACM alum Malachi Thompson, Sound drummer Alvin Fielder, and electric bassist Milton Suggs. Suggs, who was also working with Elvin Jones at the time, is the real surprise, his propulsive facility matching Fielder’s, constantly pushing the music upstairs.
Why this band didn’t become a going concern adds to the mystery that is Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre. Their music had all of the components that made loft jazz so incandescent throughout much of the 1970s: passion, chops, and imaginative rewiring of the vernacular. McIntyre and Thompson were a formidable front line. Even though McIntyre is in excellent form throughout, Thompson’s solos are consistently riveting, a welcomed reminder of the trumpeter’s brilliance. While Live from Studio Rivbea, July 12, 1975 will undoubtedly be lost in the glut of overhyped Record Store Day extravaganzas and “complete” versions of previously available concerts or studio sessions, it meets the high standard of substantively filling in an incomplete picture of an intriguing artist’s work.
