Song of the Day
Great Moments in American Jazz
Victory Dance- Don Pullen I'm taking a short break from my year end round-up of notable albums of 2009 to post an extraordinary solo piano composition by the underrated and largely unknown maverick jazz pianist Don Pullen. Pullen died in 1994 at age 54 at the peak of his playing powers. He was best known for leading a quartet with saxaphonist and flutist George Adams. Pullen dropped out of medical school to persue a career in music inspired by the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy in the early 60s. Pullen cut his teeth gigging with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and later moved on to fill the vacant piano seat in the legendary Mingus band.
Pullen was very controversial figure in jazz circles because of his unorthodox inclinations and his tenedency to deconstruct a song in ways that baffled and even angered jazz fans and music critics.
Victory Dance begins as a pleasant sounding Afro Caribbean jazz piece but listen to what happens when Pullen starts reeling out the theme to the edge of the abyss and back again. The musical integrity of the song comes close to collapsing while Pullen hammers away at the keyboard wih demonic abandon. Those familar with the free wheeling psychedelic jams of the Grateful Dead will find themselves in familar territory but other folks may wonder if Pullen is having some sort of nervous breakdown. It's one of the most amazing post-structural piano pieces I've ever heard.
Victory Dance appears on a hard to find 1983 Italian EP by Pullen called
Evidence of Things Unseen on the indie jazz label Black Saint.