Sonny Simmons & Billy Higgins - Backwoods Suite (1982)

This 1982 recording features saxophonist Sonny Simmons and drummer Billy Higgins and a smokin' pickup band that included bassist Herbie Lewis and pianist Joe Bonner, and a horn section that added Michael Marcus on baritone, Al Thomas on trombone, and Joe Hardin on trumpet. The opener is "Sparrow's Last Jump," a stomping hard bop workout that features Simmons in top lyrical form and Lewis bowing the entire tune, despite the fact that it's based on hard bop -- hell, post-hard bop -- changes and is played in 6/8 Mingus tempo! Of course, Higgins is dancing all over the kit and it's obvious that, in his solo, Simmons is reading that frenetic yet seamless dance because he goes over the time signature with his legato phrasing and cascades his arpeggios right through the middle of the intervals. It settles a bit on the title track, where the horns are left out so Simmons is sitting in only the rhythm section. Here, Higgins plays out a double-time rhythm on the ride cymbal before slowing it to four. The track has an unusually long intro, with Simmons coming out singing, like a gospel singer warming up, sweet and spare at first, but gathering steam to push off into another space entirely. When the tune kicks in, the rhythm section is ready to roll and Higgins pulls out lyric phraseology from all over his book to send listeners strolling into the heart of nighttime swing. And it just gets better and better, from the striated arco workout Lewis gets on "Title X," which is here to prove that the musical outsider in both men is in their hearts. The long intro with colorful semantics from the baritone and trombone sets a scene for Simmons to close ranks before he lifts it up into expanded tonal inquiry -- which is easy with a band this big -- while retaining the space for melody to reassert itself at any time. There's also the glorious blues read of "You Better Do It Now Before You Die" and the wailing "Chimes of the Time." By the time the title suite reprises, the entire disc has come off as a concert, a party in graceful expansive elegance, where musical junctures have met, mingled, and gone their separate ways -- sometimes with one another. Why this disc wasn't issued by Fantasy immediately after it was recorded is a huge mystery. This is one of the finest records of the 1980s and should have been played to Wynton Marsalis at ear-splitting volumes when he was still a kid trying to put down Miles and Coltrane.