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Quick! Name a shredding electric guitarist heavily
influenced by late-period John Coltrane... If you said
Sonny Sharrock, you're probably not alone; Sharrock
built a career out of translating the turbo-charged
tenor saxophone sounds of Coltrane, Albert Ayler and
other first-generation avant garde players to the
guitar. Few know, however, that Sharrock, who seems
peerless, has company in this arena.
When the sextet led by guitarist Tisziji Muņoz,
and featuring Coltrane collaborators Pharoah Sanders
(who also worked with Sharrock) and Rashied Ali, charged
into "Initiation by Fire" at the Village
Underground last month, the first thing I thought of
was Sharrock's Ask the Ages. Everything from the
instrumentation to the highly melodic quality of the
written music to the thicket-like counterpoint of
Muņoz and Sanders recalled that seminal release.
Listening to Divine Radiance, I still think of
Sharrock, but I notice that these two players use melody in
very different ways. While Sharrock famously tried
(very successfully, e.g. on
"Devils Doll Baby" from 1986's Guitar ) to "find a
way for ... terror and ... beauty to live together in one
song," Muņoz' performances tend to be either terrible
(in the most ironically positive sense) or beautiful.
The most
energetic and effective track, "Divine Radiance," a
marathon collective improvisation in the general mold
of Trane's "Ascension," undoubtedly falls into the
latter category. Here, Sanders and fellow tenor man
Ravi Coltrane alternate between hoarse brays and
molten runs that clearly evoke the elder Coltrane,
while Muņoz matches them shard for shard. The
guitarist has an impressive range of sounds at his
disposal; he shuffles pyrotechnic upper-register
somersaults, blues-metal chunks that recall
Vernon Reid, and ambient string scrapes. In total
contrast to "Radiance" is "Fatherhood," a gem-like
guitar/synth duet featuring Paul Shaffer, who uses a
plush, vibraphone-like tone. When Muņoz and Shaffer
initiated this piece at the Underground, I was totally
taken aback by its unabashed lushness. On record,
Muņoz' ringing notes float over the cloud of Shaffer's
New Age atmospheres, and if one can abide the
considerably dated sound of the synth, the piece is
quite affecting.
While the performances on Divine Radiance do
seem a bit one-dimensional in comparison with Sonny
Sharrock's best work, Tisziji Muņoz's latest is, on its
own terms, an extremely well-played (Ali in particular
is in fine, bruising form) example of post-Coltrane free
jazz that fans of this style will certainly enjoy.
This review originally appeared in the July 2003 issue of
All About Jazz - New York.
~ Hank Shteamer
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Track Listing: 1. Moment of Truth - 1:10
2. Visiting This Planet-Leaving This Planet - 16:14
3. Initiation by Fire - 16:16
4. Fatherhood - 4:26
5. Divine Radiance - 24:12
Personnel: Rashied Ali - Drums,
Cecil McBee - Bass,
Paul Shaffer - Organ, Synthesizer, Piano,
Don Pate - Bass,
Pharoah Sanders - Saxophone,
Ravi Coltrane - Saxophone,
Tisziji Munoz - Synthesizer, Guitar.
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