Frank Lowe: A Being

There’s only so much free jazz any set of ears can take in and differentiate between. And of late, it seems that the lives some of some free jazz players – while inextricable from the music – are as interesting as anything that they were able to get down onto a record. Surely, there’s always gonna be a market for music that’s more guttural than cerebral. And there should be. But there’s a point where listening to it doesn’t make too much sense. Moments crop up here and there that call for such a blatant disregard to form or function, but not everyday.

Frank Lowe, while not strictly adhering to the free jazz thing over his entire career, should be associated in anyone’s mind with the John Coltrane corner of the genre.

After gettin’ into jazz and moving to New York on the suggestion of Ornette Coleman, of all people, Lowe ended up working with Sun Ra for a few years, prior to snaring an even more interesting boss. Working with the Arkestra, no doubt informed Lowe, but in listening to the man’s sax playing on his earlier works – and specifically Black Beings released on ESP – Coltrane is clearly the player he most admires.

So during the early ‘70s, when Alice Coltrane, the wife of John and an incredible keyboardist and harpist, tapped Lowe to work with her ensemble it wasn’t surprising that the sax player was pleased to accept the invite. Even more interesting, though, was the fact that Lowe, subsequent to working with Alice, recorded a duo set with none other than Rashied Ali, John’s latter day drummer.

After that, Lowe worked on a number of dates where he was the leader, but also did some time with Don Cherry – who again worked with John Coltrane at one point. Cherry and Lowe apparently even helped Alejandro Jodorowsky with the soundtrack to The Holy Mountain – a surreal 1973 film and part of the director’s weirdo trilogy.

All of this aside, that ’73 album, Black Beings, would be the last out and out aural attack on ears that Lowe would release under his own name in the States. After recording the disc, he would go on to get a bit more rooted in the RnB and blues that he was brought up on – and then summarily moved to Paris. Not a bad move.

But on Black Beings, Lowe does reel out a succession of three tracks that are all but the most aggressive sax screeds this side of the River Styx. The album’s lead off track and homage to his musical hero, “In Trane’s Name,” clocks in at twenty three minutes and includes enough different ways by which to wrench crazy skronks outta the sax as to function as a text for future skewed jazzbos. It’s not meant to be pleasant – but it’s not impossible to listen to.

Joseph Jarman’s (the Art Ensemble of Chicao) alto contrasts Lowe’s tenor as the two fly off the handle and raise up a racket that the rhythm section can barely keep up with. There’s musicality here, you just gotta be looking for it.