Soundzine

CD: Speak-Spake-Spoke

reviewed by Vernon Frazer

Kirpal Gordon’s jazz-poetry fusion differs from most jazz poetry in two basic ways: his ear to the jazz vocal tradition and his use of musicians with cutting-edge credentials to interpret a repertoire that incorporates bop, swing, standards, pop and classical compositions with a musical freshness that corresponds to the vigor of his language. Gordon’s uncanny ability to recite his first-rate poetry with a bopper’s succinct phrasing and supple rhythm combines with an empathetic ensemble and several back-up readers to create a recording that lands in the lap of the jazz continuum where Eddie Jefferson and Jon Hendricks held sway. Whereas most jazz poets fall flat when trying to fuse the apple of their poetry with the orange of a standard tune, Kirpal thrives by making a fruit salad from seemingly incongruous elements. He does so in much the same assimilative way that jazz musicians have updated the music and refreshed its tradition: by incorporating elements from other styles, idioms and cultures into the spicy gumbo mix that originated in New Orleans and spread throughout the world.

                                                                                                                    © Salvamore Mali

Speak-Spake-Spoke, Gordon’s first recording as a leader, offers the listener an opportunity to stretch out with the band, as Gordon and the musicians reinterpret the musical material in the context that the poems, by their presence, re-cast them in. Gordon matches poems with tunes that complement and enhance each other. "If Bird Lives" blends with Gershwin’s "I Got Rhythm" in a high-flying bop tribute in which Gordon and trumpeter James Zollar intertwine their compelling lines. Gordon’s voice wails in a baritone register, his words soaring over the restraints of the tune’s AABA structure, while his sharp phrasing marks his location within the tune.  Drummer Warren Smith masterfully fills in all the right places before trading eights with Zollar.
 
In this display of poetic and music range Gordon uses extra vocalists to add punch, much the way that a Jon Hendrix vocal group might interpret the spoken word.  Background voices Jordan Jones and Leslie Stahlhut synchronize their vocal accompaniments so that their unison accents propel Gordon’s recitation to greater heights much the way a big band’s horn section boosts a soloist into a higher gear. In "Antidote to Armageddon," Jones and Stalhut’s recitations serve as a downbeat for the reflective lines Gordon phrases over the drone of Art Baron’s didjeridoo.

Whereas many poets prefer to utilize the liberation a free jazz accompaniment affords them, Gordon seems most at home with older, more structured material. His musician’s ear and timing enable him to fit his verse into the established forms and update them in the process. "Eros in Sanskrit" aptly fuses a poem rooted in the Upanishads with "Song of India," a Rimsky-Korsakov composition transformed into a pop tune during the Big Band era, fusing the ancient with the present through a vehicle from the historically recent past. The group employs the sharp ensemble interjections of swing bands before trombonist Art Baron leaps in with a punchy solo followed by tenor saxophonist Tim Price, whose warm tone and rasping effects conjure images of a post-millennial Ben Webster. "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" fuses with the text of "Origins in the Key of Sea," tying together "sea" and "spring" as common sources of renewal. Musical director Claire Daly’s rich baritone sax plays an obbligato sensitive to Gordon’s phrasing and a fluid, evocative solo by pianist Eli Yamin bridges Gordon’s reflective stanzas. "Appearances" fits skin-tight over Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s tricky "Serenade to a Cuckoo," on which Daly’s full yet breathy tone on flute interprets text and melody with a breezy swing.  Santana’s "Evil Ways" loses none of its period appeal as Gordon launches a rhythmic paean to the Afro-Cuban jazz idiom before Daly’s bari sax plays the original Willie Bobo melody, then launches into exchanging several gritty trade-off choruses with Zollar’s growling trumpet.

Digging back to the roots of New Orleans jazz, Gordon recites "Out There Without a Prayer" over a 21st century gutbucket, brass-featured rendition of "The House of the Rising Sun." Bassist Dave Hofstra plays tuba while Baron’s trombone and Zollar’s trumpet flow through the ensemble’s interplay, which  starts at a dirgelike tempo en route to the cemetery, jumps to an up tempo for the joyous return to life for the next chorus of Gordon’s recitation, then slides back to a slow, but spirited close.

Throughout the recording, the ensemble weaves deftly around and through Gordon’s syncopated phrases, matching sound with sense. In Speak-Spake-Spoke Gordon, who always has an eye on the cutting edge, turns his gaze toward the roots and history of jazz as he creates a fusion unique in the barely-charted terrain of jazz poetry.
 

Vernon Frazer has published eight books of poetry and three books of fiction. His work has appeared in Big Bridge, Drunken Boat, First Intensity, Jack Magazine, Lost and Found Times, Moria, Miami SunPost, Otoliths, Prague Literary Review, Sidereality, Xstream and many other literary magazines. His web site is http://vernonfrazer.com. His most recent works are the longpoems Holiday Idylling, Avenue Noir and IMPROVISATIONS, the now-completed work which he introduced in his 2001 reading at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. Frazer is married and lives in South Florida.