Jimmy Giuffre - Free Fall (1962)

eac secure cue log scans

Jimmy Giuffre - Free Fall (1962) [FLAC] {Columbia}
UPC Code: 5099706544623

Review by Thom Jurek
Jimmy Giuffre's 1962 recording for Columbia with his trio is one of the most revolutionary recordings to come out of the 1960s. While Coltrane and Coleman and Taylor were trying to tear music down from the inside out to discover what it really counted for, Giuffre was quietly creating his own microtonal revolution that was being overlooked by other avant-gardists in jazz. On Free Fall, Giuffre, pianist Paul Bley, and bassist Steve Swallow embarked on a voyage even farther-reaching than their previous two Verve albums, Fusion and Thesis (both recorded in 1961), in their search of pointillistic harmony, open-toned playing, and the power of the nuanced phrase to open new vistas for solo or group improvisation. The original album is comprised of five clarinet solos, two duets for clarinet and bass, and three trio pieces. The CD reissue adds five more clarinet solos to the bank and makes it a stunning view of Giuffre as a master of the idiom of not only jazz free improvisation but also a fine interpreter of the musical languages being discussed by classical composers Darius Milhaud, Stravinsky, Messiaen, and even Morton Feldman and Earle Brown. All of Giuffre's clarinet studies -- particularly "Man Alone," "Yggdrasill," and "Present Motion" -- are studies in tonal coloration, where phraseology opens onto second and third tonal ideas being layered atop one another to de-emphasize one or the other. Of the group interactions, "Threewe" and "Spasmodic" offer the view of intertwining chromatic pointillism as it shapes itself linguistically between one instrument and the next without concern for a dominant harmony, rhythm, or melody. Indeed, Free Fall was such radical music, no one, literally no one, was ready for it and the group disbanded shortly thereafter on a night when they made only 35 cents apiece for a set. Reissued in 1999, Free Fall predates all of the European microtonal studies and is indeed an inspiration to all who have embraced it.

Tracks
01 - Propulsion
02 - Threewe
03 - Ornothoids
04 - Dichotomy
05 - Man Alone
06 - Spasmodic
07 - Yggdrasill
08 - Divided Man
09 - Primordial Call
10 - The Five Ways
11 - Present Notion
12 - Motion Suspended
13 - Future Plans
14 - Past Mistakes
15 - Time Will Tell
16 - Let's See