MIKE OSBORNE TRIO - Border Crossing

 

(Originally posted on Facebook, 3 December 2024)

 

Well, while I'm sitting here recovering from my operation - a.k.a. doing nothing - I might as well do some writing, give my poor left arm some purposeful exercise, so here's the third chapter in my Ogun Records survey:

 

MIKE OSBORNE TRIO: Border Crossing

(OG 300)

 

Track listing: Ken's Tune/Stop And Start/Awakening Spirit/Ist/Animation/Riff/Border Crossing

 

Mike Osborne (alto sax), Harry Miller (bass), Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums).

 

Recorded live at the Peanuts Club, "The King's Arms," Bishopsgate, London, 28 September 1974. Produced by Mike Osborne and Keith Beal. Sleeve design: George Hallett.

 

He might have been absent from the Brotherhood's Willisau gig, but Mike Osborne more than makes up for that in this stupendous record. In 1979's The Illustrated Encylcopaedia Of Jazz, Brian Case makes no bones about referring to Ossie as "Britain's finest alto saxophonist." It's impossible to call that title now, given the immense number of gifted altoists who have emerged onto the UK jazz scene in the subsequent forty-five years, but it's undeniable that he was one of our greatest.

 

The Trio, with Miller and Moholo-Moholo, had been in operation since 1969, but had to wait five years to be recorded. At that time Osborne was principally known as one of the star players in Mike Westbrook's various bands (of which Miller was also a member) but was in the process of realigning himself musically with the South African exiles. There is talk that his 1970 album Outback was originally intended as a Trio album but became a Quintet record after Chris McGregor and Harry Beckett were added to the line-up - some reports at the time stated that Chris and Harry simply turned up to the studio anyway, but the elaborate and thought-through arrangements of the record's tunes suggest a good deal more organisation.

 

Anyhow, the Trio enjoyed a successful long-term Friday night residency at the Peanuts Club in Bishopsgate - although they were the core band, other young horn players were often invited along to sit in and test their improvisational skills - so it was logical that their first record be recorded at one of their gigs. Border Crossing represents just forty-two or so minutes from a typical evening of blowing. In his sleevenote, Osborne states that the Trio had just returned fron a successful, if exhausting, tour of mainland Europe, with plenty of borders, both musically and physically, having been crossed. So the record could be interpreted as a declaration of intent.

 

It begins with the band's unofficial signature tune, "Ken's Tune" for Ken May, who ran the Peanuts Club. This is a charming piece which in different circumstances might pass for the theme to an animated British children's television show of the seventies (N.B.: speaking as someone who grew up watching children's television in Britain, I say that this is a good thing). It gives the Trio a chance to establish and settle into a basic post-bop groove. In a small group without any harmonic instruments, the bassist has the not inconsiderable job of both holding down the harmonic structure while simultaneously maintaining the rhythmic flow; this Miller achieves with gracious ease, allowing Moholo-Moholo to build up a steady, medium-volume percussive commentary.

 

All eases along agreeably enough, although I note Osborne's oddly sour tone and harsh-sounding reed - my father thought he made the alto sound like a soprano (and if there was one thing my father didn't like, it was the soprano saxophone). Nevertheless the Trio easily speeds up for the fast bebop of "Stop And Start," becoming more energetic. "Awakening Spirit," which is Miller's tune (Ossie wrote all the others), maintains the same optimistically forceful mood; it is one of those jaunty melodies which looks forward to what the bassist will do in Isipingo.

 

"Ist" is different. Beginning with a sonorous arco bass drone, and bells mysteriously rattling in the background - those "children at play" again, perhaps? - the alto delivers a solemn lament, a bit like Coltrane's "Alabama," before suddenly shifting into a fast klezmer march. Throughout this ten-minute performance, the three musicians eye each other up suspiciously, almost like a standoff, before breaking into exploratory features for both alto and bass. The common comparison point is Ornette's Golden Circle trio, but musically Osborne's style sounds to my ear to have much more in common with Eric Dolphy - particularly his various adventures with Mingus - than Coleman. Almost at the end of this piece, Osborne utters a terrible, guttural low-level scream through his horn, as though at the end of his tether.

 

The three tunes on side two flow into each other in an uninterrupted stream of continuous music. "Animation" sees the Trio re-establishing its post-bop framework - note how the central melody is only disclosed, and then with some reluctance, some minutes into the piece.

 

The band, prompted by Miller's bowed bass signals, then accelerate into "Riff" - a more aggressive variant of "Stop And Start" - where they reach a peak of quite terrifying intensity, all three players absolutely fired up, Osborne groping for, then achieving, full free flight, Moholo-Moholo never letting up on his rattling commentary.

 

Finally, with the title track, the Trio achieve a state of nirvana, Osborne now totally off the tonal scale, even essaying mimicry of Miller's above-the-bridge bowed scrapings as the rhythm section thunders around him. Perhaps what is most terrifying about this music is its absolute, joyful certainty. And we are not permitted to forget that we are witnessing a journey; that bebop riff is rephrased and the music fades, the players already off on their evidently unending travels...

 

Current availability: on CD and download along with OG 810 (to be reviewed), available here.