Listening to Prestige 468: Roland Alexander

Tenor saxophonist Roland Alexander cut this session for Prestige in 1961, and his only other date as leader, for the short-lived avant-garde label Kharma, in 1978. He would record once more after that, with James Spaulding in 1991. Because his work grew more and more free form, it didn't always command a large audience or cause record companies to beat down his door, but it had the respect of his contemporaries.

And in the middle of all that, in 1973, his first recording was released. It was dated 1956, and his bandmates were John Coltrane, Curtis Fuller, Pepper Adams, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones.

Wait a second. Who was on piano?\

Oh, yes, that. That was 20-year-old Roland Alexander.

So perhaps we'd better start at the beginning. Alexander was born and grew up in Boston and Cambridge, where he studied composition at the Boston Conservatoryy, and his first instrument was piano, although he took up the saxophone quite early. While he was still a conservatory student, he began playing local gigs around (this was not unheard of--Makanda Ken McIntyre was a fellow student).

Apparently Miles Davis, with his new young wunderkind Paul Chambers on bass, must have been playing a gig in Boston, when Blue Note decided they wanted to feature Paul Chambers as leader on an album. Fuller and Adams must also have been playing gigs in Boston at the same time, so they were called in on the session, but for whatever reason, Red Garland didn't show up. They played two numbers without a piano, but called upon the conservatory kid who happened to be in or around the studio to fill in on piano for the third tune, "Trane's Strain." He sounds good--appropriately for the session, very much in the Garland vein.

Blue Note shelved the session, although they did record Chambers again later that summer, in the Van Gelders' living room. So by the time it was finally released, it bore little or no resemblance to the music Alexander was making,

But when Alexander made his debut on Prestige in 1961, this session, with his idols from New York and the jazz world that the young conservatorian dreamed of entering, must still have been very much a part of his maturing self. He had come to New York in 1958. He had started building a reputation, and had played on two sessions for Bethlehem, one led by Howard McGhee and the other by Charlie Persip. And stylistically, he was still very much under the influence of Coltrane--not so much the Coltrane of Giant Steps as the Trane of the Prestige sessions with Red Garland. It was a sound that was starting to be superseded by newer styles, but it never went away completely, and it still sounds good.

Alexander's bop-time band was made up of young players, all new to Prestige. Of them, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave would go on to make the biggest impression in the music world. Belgrave had joined the Ray Charles band in 1957, and while off the road, in between tours with Charles, began to make a reputation in New York, working with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, among others. But not long after his session with Alexander, he moved to Detroit, reversing the trend of so many great Detroit musicians who had come east to New York. Many years later, he explained his motivation in an interview. “This was just a natural place for me to come.This was probably the only place in the country where music was No. 1.”

Although many of Detroit's top jazz musicians had left, there was still an active jazz scene, and the Motor City was about to become a music center all over again, with the arrival of Berry Gordy and Motown Records. Detroit's jazz musicians formed the core of the Motown house band celebrated in the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and Belgrave was one of the key players. When Motown Records decamped for Los Angeles, Belgrave stayed in Detroit, where he taught and mentored young musicians.

This was Ronnie Matthews' first recording session, and the beginning of a distinguished career. Unusually for a pianist, he didn't make all that many sessions as a leader, but he was a longtime member of Max Roach's group, of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and for another generation, with T. S. Monk. He played with Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, and many others.

Gene Taylor came to Alexander on loan from the Horace Silver Quintet, with whom he played from 1958-63. Among his other considerable accomplishments was writing the "Why? (The King of Love is Dead)," about the assassination of Martin Luther King, which Nina Simone recorded (he was working with Simone at the time). They were all young. Roland Alexander was 26, Marcus Belgrave 25, Ronnie Mathews 26, “Scoby” Stroman 29. Gene Taylor was the senior citizen of the bunch at 32.

For Clarence Stroman, in the session log, "Scoby" is given as nickname, but for his 1996 obituary in The New York Times, it's his middle name: C. Scoby Stroman. Either way, he built a fine reputation not only as a drummer but also as a dancer, and as performance poet before that appellation was widely used. He called what he did "drummetry" -- a combination of drumming and poetry.

"Dorman Road" is a good example of Alexander's talent, and of his debt, at this stage of his career to Coltrane. An original Alexander composition, it's a tribute to Coltrane and takes its name from the road that ran past Coltrane's home. It develops off a riff that owes a lot to Trane. You can hear echoes of "Moment's Notice," on Blue Train, and a couple of other Trane riffs.

Ozzie Cadena produced, and the album was released on New Jazz.