When
Mal Waldron died in 2002, he was known to most jazz fans as
Billie Holiday's final accompanist, and the composer of the standards "Soul Eyes," "Left Alone," and "Straight Ahead," the latter with
Abbey Lincoln. His most significant leader date was 1961's
The Quest, with
Eric Dolphy and
Booker Ervin on Prestige, where he served as house pianist. After suffering a total breakdown following a near-fatal heroin overdose in 1963, he was forced to relearn the piano. He left for Europe in early 1966, and his "second life" began.
Waldron's many solo recordings, beginning with 1966's
All Alone, are tantamount to the creation of a different jazz language. Its traits were angular, quizzical repetitive left-hand vamps and chords, underscored and appended by inquisitive harmonic inquiries on the right, drawn chiefly from the blues but also the jazz tradition and classical music from
Chopin to
Schoenberg.
Searching in Grenoble is a previously unissued 100-minute-plus performance from a jazz festival that has been transferred from the original Radio France archival tapes.
Waldron's canny, bountiful improvising is fully evident on the original 23-minute opening medley, "Mistral Breeze"/"Sieg Haile" (the latter a tribute to Ethiopian leader Haile Selassie). Its brooding chords, somber vamps, and repetitive, tightly wound left-hand figures establish the ground as the pianist investigates each one, shifting tempos and tonal centers before breaking into lyric asides in illustrating their dexterity. Though his approach is not associated with conventional "swing," there is plenty in his "Fire Waltz," with fat, chunky vamps creating a darker rhythmic sound contrasted with ascendant chords and cheerful runs with his left hand. "You Don't Know What Love Is" commences with almost doomy operatic chords, then transforms itself through the blues, ragtime, and Eastern modes as it reveals its deeply emotional center. "Soul Eyes" spotlights the effortless transitions
Waldron makes between styles and harmonic and rhythmic tensions as he moves alternately in front of and behind the beat, seemingly stretching time to discover and excavate hidden harmonic nuances.
On disc two,
Waldron delivers a nearly cinematic version of the standard "It Could Happen to You" that balances discovery and nuance after introducing a 12-bar blues walk. His nearly ten-minute reading of "I Thought About You" is a breathtaking exercise in resonant balladry wedding classical harmony and dissonant blues. His "Snake Out" is a biting, jumping modal blues with deft lower-register tonal investigations that strip down into knotty single-line ostinatos and arpeggios. Closer "All Alone," a dramatic ballad based in dirge and drone, becomes almost transcendent halfway through as its lyric heart is uncovered.
The accompanying booklet contains notes and interviews by co-producer
Zev Feldman and daughter Mala Waldron, critical appreciations by Adam Shatz and Pascal Rozat, and interviews with
Ran Blake and
Matthew Shipp.
Searching in Grenoble illustrates the maturity, depth, and detail in
Waldron's musical language to full effect in excellent sound. Hopefully, its release leads to a wider, fully deserved conversation about his criminally under-noticed yet massive contribution to jazz. ~ Thom Jurek