Disc of the day: 22-10-09

Jamaaladeen Tacuma: Coltrane Configurations (jazzwerkstatt 066)
One of this excellent German label’s CDs from live broadcasts on WDR Radio in Cologne. This one was recorded in Dortmund a year ago and features the iconoclastic Philadelphian electric bassist leading a quartet in his exploration of the legacy John Coltrane legacy left us.

What is great, given the subject matter, is how refreshingly – shall we say sacrilegiously? – Tacuma, who, let us not forget, was in Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time band, deals with Trane’s music. All the compositions are Coltrane’s: India, Dahomey Dance, Impressions, Naima and A Love Supreme. But this is Trane with a seriously funky bass guitar pushing the beat, and the young players who are with him – fellow Philadelphians Orrin Evans on keyboards and Tim Hutson on drums, with one of Nottingham’s finest, Tony Kofi, on saxophones – rise to the occasion in stylish fashion.

Impressions boasts fine solos from everyone, with Evans and Tacuma particularly forceful – Hutson solos behind, hitting the kind of furious tom rolls that remind us of Billy Cobham. Evans adds a nice marimba holding pattern behind Kofi’s closing solo. Naima is taken fairly straight, while A Love Supreme has a lot more of the dance club and scratch contest about it than the church. I suppose, in the end, Tacuma has such a lovely, rich bass sound that and all-too-earthy funk and a spiritual searching seem to be running through it in parallel.

At the end he turns the chant into an audience participation exercise and adds a plea for support for Obama into the mix. Lovely stuff!