When Lester Koenig produced Burning Spirits for Contemporary in 1970, jazz was moving in many different directions. Commercially, jazz had lost a lot of ground to rock and R&B, but creatively, it was incredibly healthy and offered a wide variety of options -- everything from fusion, soul-jazz, and funky organ combos to bossa nova, Afro-Cuban jazz, modal post-bop, cool jazz, and Dixieland revivalists. Sonny Simmons represented free jazz, which was considered jazz's lunatic fringe (certainly in bop circles) but was exciting and invigorating if you understood what was going on. Many listeners, unfortunately, didn't comprehend free jazz back then and don't comprehend it now; however, those who do understand free jazz will find Simmons to be in top form on this CD. The saxman -- who is heard on tenor and alto as well as the English horn -- leads a passionate, highly inspired band that boasts Barbara Donald on trumpet, Richard Davis and Cecil McBee on upright bass, Lonnie Liston Smith on acoustic piano, and Clifford Jarvis on drums. That doesn't sound like a terribly avant-garde lineup -- most of those improvisers have played inside more often than they've played outside -- but make no mistake: Burning Spirits is a shining example of avant-garde expression. Although "New Newk" (which was written for Sonny Rollins) favors an inside/outside approach and offers a modal post-bop groove along the lines of John Coltrane's "Impressions," Burning Spirits is generally more free jazz than post-bop. But regardless of whether Simmons is playing inside or outside (usually outside), the saxman plays with tremendous conviction on this album (which was out of print for a long time but came back into print when Fantasy reissued it on CD in 2003).
© Alex Henderson /TiVo