#odean pope

[jazz-improvisation]

The saxophonist Odean Pope (born October 24, 1938), who saw Ibn Ali as a mentor, was in the quartet that recorded the lost album in 1965.

photo: Frans Schellekens/Redferns, Via Getty Images

[burlveneer-music]

Jamaaladeen Tacuma & Odean Pope - The Lighthouse - Philly jazz greats together on new album

In 2022 Jamaaladeen had been awarded an “Art Works” grant From Forman Arts Initiative and Philadelphia Foundation. This grant afforded him the opportunity to gather seasoned musical icons and the “next generation” ( of icons) that caught his eye for several studio sessions that all exemplify Philadelphias rich musical legacy and artists that resides here which gave birth to his new artist collective THE PHILLY IMPROV SOCIETY. Jamaaladeen’s sessions are meant to amplify the voices of these artists and pass on the mythical magical language of black creative music that happens in Philadelphia to the next generation of musicians . He is gathering not only Philly based artists but also prominent International renowned master improvisers he has met through his 50 year career. Tacuma starts where it all began with one of his musical mentors that was a teacher in the “Model Cities” Music Program in Philadelphia in the 1970’s Composer Odean Pope. He has influenced generations of musicians worldwide with his charismatic approach to education, mentorship and musical mastery and along side a teenage band mate from his earliest days playing live music in Philly, G. Calvin Weston. He invited music brother Marc Cary composer and keyboardist who has made his own mark on black music for his generation and Paul Giess an emerging star composer who exemplifies Philly’s next generation of musician that is carrying on the legacy of improvised music and Introducing on the scene Ru-Deep a mysterious sonic explorer on guitar and percussion . Odean Pope Sax Jamaaladeen Tacuma Bass G. Calvin Weston Drums Paul Giess Trumpet and Electronics Marc Cary Keyboards Ru-Deep Electric Guitar and Percussion

[mosaicrecords]

Odean Pope and Pharoah Sanders Interviewed

This 2014 conversation of Rhonda Hamilton with Odeon Pope and Pharoah Sanders took place at WBGO took place during one of the New York bookings of Odeon’s Saxophone Choir. It nice to hear from two great saxophonists who aren’t often interviewed.

-Michael Cuscuna

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[mosaicrecords]

Barber's Hall: Philadelphia Jazz Venue Hangs On

Every major city has a legendary night spot where major talent found its first stage. Music-rich Phildelphia had a few, including Barber’s Hall. Despite tempting offers from developers to sell, current owner Jake Adams is keeping the doors open. Brandon Harden chronicles the bar’s rich history in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

-Michael Cuscuna

Read and watch from the Philadelphia Inquirer… Follow: Mosaic Records Facebook Tumblr Twitter

[mosaicrecords]

Odean Pope on Lee Morgan

One more collateral benefit of I Called Him Morgan, the Kasper Collin's powerful documentary on Lee Morgan: Susan Lewis's WRTI interview with Odean Pope, who recounts in vivid detail the days and nights he spent growing up with Lee Morgan in Philadelphia. Don't miss this.

-Nick Moy

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[glsmyth]

Odean Pope at the Big Ears Festival 2022

Odean Pope at the Big Ears Festival 2022

Bromoil print Fomabrom Variant IV 123 Digital negative

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[dustedmagazine]

CIMP Round Up

Creative Improvised Music Projects (CIMP) launched in 1995 and immediately courted controversy on multiple fronts from its niche listening audience. Foremost among criticisms was the label’s stalwart approach to recording. Literal in-house engineer, Marc Rusch espoused a minimalist ethos emphasizing an avoidance of digital processing and spartan microphone placement in the service of documenting musicians in as close to transparent conditions as possible. The techniques resulted in a fidelity that could feel dampened and distractingly quiet to the unaccustomed ear, particularly regarding unamplified strings.

Next amongst objections was the choice of studio. Dates requiring a piano relied on a conservatory hall in a neighboring locale, but most sessions took place in a living room setting, christened The Spirit Room, where acoustics reflected natural and meteorological effects such as heat, humidity, and precipitation. The label was also resolute in applying its DIY aesthetic to a roster of musicians with fiercely DIY sensibilities. Free jazz and improvisation constituted the chosen purview and CIMP only rarely strayed from the staunch focus.

Over the next two decades, CIMP released an astonishingly prolific catalog of over four-hundred albums. Many of the musicians recorded had little to no recourse in releasing music through other means. Once “signed,” most of them also returned for multiple projects over the span of years, building to their bodies of work on an independent label committed to getting their music into the hands and ears of those who would appreciate it. Easier said than accomplished, and a facetious informal tagline for CIMP artists surfaced and stuck, “welcome to obscurity.”

The vagaries and vicissitudes of the music industry have led to various hiatuses for CIMP and the temporary tabling of its mission, but at the close of 2021 the label surprised with a quartet of trio releases after a three-year silence. Capsule reviews of each follow.

Tenorist Odean Pope once distilled his method down to playing at the bottom range of his instrument “like John Coltrane played at the top.” A simplification, to be sure, but that inverted sheets-of-sound vernacular is all over the eight originals and two covers that comprise Inspired by Cis. The title is a loving nod to Pope’s recently deceased spouse, and the recording date of January 2010 gives the album’s decade-plus sequestration on the shelf a resounding better-late-than-never poignancy. Drummer Craig McIver’s association with leader dates back the Pope’s Saxophone Choir days in the mid-1990s and bassist Lee Smith also shares longstanding ties.

Both sidemen are equal participants in the deeply personal program, soloing organically and often, and embellishing Pope’s soulful peregrinations with canny combinations of texture and tone color. The lushly loping “PEN,” hip-swiveling swing of “Remembering Prez” and Gordian vertical spirals of “The Thought” rise to the top of the saxophonist’s loosely scripted excursions. Max Roach’s “Lonesome Lover,” an improvisation on “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” and a closing amatory meditation on “My Romance” qualify Pope’s taste in tasteful covers. And contrary to erstwhile contrarian complaints, the sound and balance of the Spirit Room register just fine.

Tenorist Jimmy Halperin’s tenure with CIMP constituted one of the label’s left turn surprises. A devotee of Warne Marsh and student of both Lennie Tristano and Sal Mosca, Halperin’s brainy and individualistic improvisational process also embraces a level of freedom that wasn’t the common province of his mentors. The unofficial CIMP house rhythm section of bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen quickly gelled as his preferred compatriots and Work-Play delivers another of their songbook dive conclaves, this time from January of 2013.

Nine titles offer a studious cross section of jazz standards, but Halperin and his colleagues are just as open-minded and ended on Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” and Jobim’s “Corcovado” as they are disassembling Dizzy’s “Be-Bop” and Coltrane’s “Equinox.” A consummate contrafactualist, even when Halperin threads a familiar melody straight, like Strayhorn’s “Lush Life,” there’s something deliciously off-center and alien about it. Duval and Rosen played in so many contexts with such dialed in regularity that they can practically finish each other’s musical sentences. Arid and erudite on the surface, there’s a teeming ecology going on in these performances if one only takes the time to dig.

A Philadelphian like Odean Pope, and a participant in several pivotal Cecil Taylor ensembles, Elliott Levin’s been fire-breathing through an arsenal of reed and wind instruments since the second half of the last century. Equally at ease in large and small groups, it’s usually the latter where he incandesces brightest and Free Range Thanks supplies just such a setting with bassist Jason Fraticelli and drummer Ed Watkins. Nine originals: one from Watkins, two from Fraticelli and the remainder from the leader, along a collective improvisation add up to an hour-and-a-quarter of high-octane free jazz.

Levin fields the first half of the program on tenor, getting a canny balance of freight and resonance from the horn, as on the slowly spooling opener “Barcode Key.” Flute and soprano surface in later statements. Watkins officiates a modified kit minus high-hat and bass drum, standing, also making use of an assemblage of cowbells and small percussion effects. Faticelli’s default is a woody, ambling, adhesive lope that detours into ripe, swaggering strut and ardent strum on occasion. Once again, the Spirit Room acoustics are a boon rather than a boondoggle, accommodating all three players with a palpable presence of placement and sonority at all speeds.

Trombonist Steve Swell was a semi-regular at the Spirit Room in the years running up to The Bearable Lightness of Being, leading or contributing to twenty-two separate sessions prior to this March 2014 date at the helm. The album title inversely references Milan Kundera’s existentialist novel and Swell’s trio with altoist Will Connell and drummer Reggie Nicholson makes the absence of a conventional chordal instrument a consistent contextual asset instead of a liability. Compositions are by the leader, except for two takes of Nicholson’s melody driven “Watabu.” “Elegy to Roy Campbell” lovingly, if lugubriously eulogizes a comrade fallen just prior to the session.

There’s something of a New Orleans street-band flavor to the format, with the horns weaving polyphonous peaks and troughs and Nicholson stamping and stomping the center with snare syncopations on the Sun Ra-styled title piece. Connell’s phrasing is dry and penetrating, alternating legato squiggles with more emphatic, melody-charged bursts. Swell jockeys and jiggers his slide, shaping metallic slurs and whinnies that celebrate the classic tailgate technicians (“March of the Jazz Dinosaurs”) while retaining a modern peal and growl. As good as he and Nicholson are, the disc is arguably most valuable for the spotlight shown on Connell, who died just eight-months after the session, several days shy of his 76th birthday.

Derek Taylor

CIMP titles are available direct through CADNor.

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The Misled Children Meet Odean Pope - Uno (Porter Records)