Not long after out-jazz cornetist Stephen Haynes recorded his debut Parrhesia in 2010 with Joe Morris and Warren Smith, his mentor Bill Dixon passed away. Coming along five years later, the sophomore effort Pomegranate can be thought of as a tribute of sorts to Dixon, a very original trumpet player who was long one of the heavies in free jazz. And that’s primarily because who Haynes is as a musician is influenced significantly by what Dixon was.
Pomegranate (now on sale through New Atlantis Records) utilizes the Parrhesia trio, which by now has achieved uncommon telepathy, but to make things further interesting, the trio expands to a quintet, throwing in William Parker (bass) and Ben Stapp (tuba) for good measure. By adding more bottom-ended heft to the sound, Stephen Haynes balanced out his sonic imprint and managed to do so without disrupting at all the sparsity of his first album. Then again, Parker and Stapp know how to operate in lean environments, and Smith’s light touch is one of the very things that sets him apart from virtually every other drummer.
That would leave Haynes and Morris freed up as the main improvisers for this project, but the band assembled for Pomegranate is a true improv collective, with everyone contributing without any regards for rigid guidelines; what is it that Weather Report used to say? “Everyone solos and no one solos.”
Stephen Haynes even grants the floor to the guest players right on the first performance, “Sillage.” Parker’s the bowed bass with Stapp’s tuba makes the song alien and otherworldly and in the meantime, Smith’s wizardry on percussion is responsible for most of the tonal colors. For a good chunk of “Pomegranate,” the song, there’s a tête–à–tête going on between Haynes and Parker, where Haynes’s technique shows the product of woodshedding under greats like Dixon: he goes down paths not often taken in his diction, following no particular pattern and trusting his instincts. Morris eases himself into the conversation as Smith gradually lets his presence known and Stapp’s low notes find a spot in this expanding mosaic. The fury builds and releases, as everyone is reading each other’s minds with uncanny accuracy.
A couple of tunes ostensibly inspired by African folk songs provide a graceful counterweight to the dissonance. Stephen Haynes and Morris on “Mangui Fii Reek (I Am Still Here)” are working off a Parker riff to which Parker soon begins to apply subtle variations. In spite of that, he’s maintaining such a solid rhythm, Smith is able to work on the fringes of the song and Morris does a delicate dance around Parker’s staggered path. For “Crepuscular,” Parker once again sets the song in motion with an ostinato, with Smith on marimba and everyone playing hushed on this hypnotic, circular strain.
“Becoming,” a seventeen minute epic, is a pastiche that wanders from one motif to the next until it settles into a limber groove, as Haynes patiently places remarks that break up the patterns. He leaves behind some nervy, maximal cornet on “Odysseus (Lashed To The Mast)” that finds Smith restless behind the drum kit as Parker is laid back and Morris is beautifully expressive. And almost on cue, as Parker reaches for the bow, Stapp steps in to fill in the low-end void he leaves behind.
There are no sophomore blues with Stephen Haynes who has learned a lot from Bill Dixon, but the most important takeaway he learned is finding his own voice. With it’s eclectic mixture of instruments performed by a band full of unique improvisers, Pomegranate is an album Dixon would no doubt be proud of.
feature photo: Scott Friedlander
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