“Every tune that I’ve written so far has a meaning and a story within it that I want the whole group to capture ...
A lot of guys, when they play, are not thinking about what they’re actually playing, they’re just thinking about maybe the chords, or how the rhythm changes, or something like that, but I really try to tell a story and I want the group that plays my tunes to try to see what I saw when I wrote them.”
Grachan Moncur III
Grachan Moncur III is one of the first ot the few, real 'free' jazz Trombonists that explored that particular idiom. From the 'Sixties to the early 'Seventies, Moncur was the leading trombonist on the scene. His only rival was Roswell Rudd, whose style was as gregarious as Mr. Moncur's was subdued. He dressed like a leader, wearing black turtlenecks that defined Bohemian hipness and sporting a goatee that hinted at intellectual seriousness. Grachan Moncur III is also a prolific Composer, who is still, perhaps best known for his pair of Innovative Albums which he recorded for "Blue Note" in the early 'sixties: "Evolution", with Jackie Mclean and Lee Morgan, and "Some Other Stuff", with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.
Mr. Moncur was born in 1937 into a musical family in New York City. His father was Bassist Grachan Moncur II, who played bass with the Savoy Sultans, the house band at the Savoy Ballroom, and his Uncle is Saxophonist Al Cooper. Grachan was eleven when he first picked up the trombone. Moncur then attended, and graduated from The Laurinberg Institute in North Carolina, as had Dizzy Gillespie. Whilst he was still at school, Grachan began sitting in with touring Bands, passing through town, such as Art Blakey & The 'Jazz Messengers', forming what became a lasting friendship with Alto Saxophonist Jackie McLean.
The two began to work together in February 1963. Grachan was, by then, a Juilliard Composition student who had already made his mark, working with Ray Charles, and also the Art Farmer-Benny Golson 'Jazztet'. For Jackie McLean, Grachan provided just the inspiration that was needed: ''When Grachan and I got together it was like a marriage,'' Jackie McLean recalled. Among brass-horn marriages, theirs was as distinctive as the better-known partnerships of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, or Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter. It combined the emotional urgency of free jazz with the poise and restraint one associates with the Modern Jazz Quartet.
They recruited a rhythm section of 'unknowns': a 17-year-old drummer from Boston, Tony Williams; the vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson; and the bassist Eddie Khan. Mr. Moncur's writing was integral to the group's success. It was angular yet bluesy, formally adventurous but grounded in hooks. Grachans' primary influence was Thelonious Monk:
"I would say, that the studying of 'Monk' probably led to everything. I think it probably led to my whole Compositional outgrowth because that's when everything started happening; after I'd done the studying of Monk for six weeks, or maybe two months, and then I just put that down and just started writing stuff, and practicing and writing and writing; I was trying to look at writing Music the way a Painter, would paint." Grachan Moncur III
''If Monk was a tribal leader,'' McLean once said, ''Grachan would be his medicine man.''
After a few gigs at Brooklyn's Blue Coronet, the band recorded ''One Step Beyond,'' which featured two tunes by McLean and two by Moncur . Moncur, McLean and Hutcherson made two more records that year; the darkly mesmerizing ''Destination Out,'' with Roy Haynes on drums and Larry Ridley on bass; and Mr. Moncur's Masterpiece, ''Evolution"; a suite of four originals recorded under his leadership, with Tony Williams returning on drums, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Lee Morgan on trumpet. In bright, strutting, tempo-shifting numbers like ''Monk in Wonderland,'' the medicine man paid tribute to the tribal leader. But he also displayed an impressive talent for other genres, from searing vamp-driven tunes (''Hypnosis'') to somber, deadpan waltzes (''Frankenstein'') to ominously slow, nearly tempoless dirges (''Love and Hate,'' ''Ghost Town''). The dramatic ''Ghost Town,'' a 14-minute ''musical painting,'' conjures up a grandly portentous sense of desolation, through long passages in which nothing is heard but spare reverberations on vibes or cymbals, which echo like footsteps on a seemingly deserted street.
"To me, "Evolution" wasn't 'avant garde' per se, not for what the 'avant garde' was really standing for at that time. The 'avant garde' at that time was dealing with the idea of being 'revolutionary' Music. I had no thoughts in my mind of being revolutionary, I thought, the way that I named the Album, which was "Evolution". I was thinking of the Music evolving from the Mainstream. I didn't want to think in terms of 'We're taking over', 'We're making changes', my mind was never there. That is why my Album is called "Evolution". Grachan Moncur III
After ''Evolution,'' Moncur went on to make one more record under his own name for Blue Note, the 1964 session ''Some Other Stuff.'' A truly great record, it features Moncur alongside Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams and the bassist Cecil McBee.
''That whole record was inspired by the hard times I was having in New York, I'd just fallen out with the first young lady I'd met in New York, and I'd moved out of my apartment in the Diplomat Hotel opposite Town Hall, which was the biggest mistake I ever made since I had a room there with a private bath and telephone for only $27 a week! The song titles ''Gnostic'' and ''Nomadic,'' expressed my state of mind; I was a nomad after losing my room, and I was a gnostic because I had to survive in the streets by my own wits.''
Grachan Moncur III
It's hard to listen to ''Some Other Stuff'' without a melancholy sense of what-might-have-been, not only because so few jazz musicians today are taking comparable risks, but because of disputes over Publishing rights to his Music, Mr. Moncur was dropped from Blue Note. Mr. Moncur's career as a leader didn't come to an end, but this definitely 'stunted' the growth of such brilliant beginnings.....
After leaving "Blue Note", Moncur toured Sonny Rollins, and then with Archie Shepps' ensemble, and recorded with other 'avant garde' players, such as Marion Brown, Beaver Harris, and Roswell Rudd. He made some fine records: in Paris in the summer of 1969, he recorded two Albums, as a leader, for the prestigious "BYG Actuel" label. Most notable is ''New Africa'', on which there is luminous work from both Archie Shepp and Roscoe Mitchell. This Album was recently reissued on vinyl by Actuel.
Mr. Moncur's great "Blue Note ' work, much of which he made in collaboration with Jackie McLean, was also recently reissued on a three-disc boxed set by Mosaic Records. These reissues should, at least help to restore an extraordinary talent to his rightful place in Jazz. Sixteen of the twenty-five tracks were written by Grachan Moncur III; neither 'Bop' nor 'free', but a deft synthesis of the two; the music is as unforgettable and idiosyncratic as his name.
Grachan Moncur III continues to play, and record 'challenging' Music; his most recent Album,"Inner Cry Blues" was released in 2007. The Album spotlights the renowned artist's celebrated compositional skills in a program that includes new works and reexaminations of classic pieces that are all dedicated to people who have profoundly influenced his life, both musically and personally.
Last Labor Day, featured the reunion of "The ReUnion Legacy Band"; this year Grachan will be doing us the honor of returning to perform, with his Quintet, at "Jammin' On The Hudson", July 27th 2008.
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