Paul Nash - A Jazz Composer's Ensemble 1979

An absolutely brilliant long-lost classic private pressing from the US, composer Paul Nash's first record, and inevitably his best work. Mostly Mingus-style cool west-coast jazz with outstanding ensemble playing and serious classical overtones and harmonies. In a few self-written paragraphs on the back cover Paul Nash dedicates the album to Charlie Mingus himself (who sadly was to die a month later of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). He mentions he usually begins his composition with solo guitar and singing, oddly enough.

Subtitle to the album "Featuring Mark Isham, with Eddie Marshall and Art Lande. "

A1 Marigail-Marigold 11:19
A2 Passing Glance 3:25
A3 Our Time Is Numbered 7:59
B1 Tamalpais Night 8:56
B2 The Joy 6:41
B3 Full Spiral 8:43

Many of the compositions were written by Paul in the early seventies, probably as compositional exercises. He is a graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston although he wound up in San Fransisco after his education. Prior to starting his own band in 1977, he wrote music for these two formations: Jerry Granelli's septet, Canyon, and Noel Jewkes Jazz Octet, then called Jewkes and the Dr Legato Express. Perhaps in a later post these artists will show up-- certainly they sound well worth seeking out.

First track starts with what to me is a bit hackneyed chords of Dflat on top of C bass moving up a minor third. This progresses a bit but flounders in my opinion in incessant soloing for ten plus minutes.
Passing Glance features the inevitable rhumba-style beat we find on these old jazz records.
Our time is numbered finishes out side 1 with some wonderful almost big band ensemble playing, very majestically sublime, a nice carla bley-style descending melody evokes some kind of sunset feeling.

Side 2 opens with Paul's guitar intro into Tamalpais Night which jumps into chromatic and angular structures. Abruptly the song slows down to a crawl before hopping to the prokofieff sounds again.

Track "The Joy" is very much Mingus happy-bus style slinky riffs with a modulation every 2-3 chords winding its bubbly way downstream.

Highlight for me is the last track with its remarkably angular opening as if out of a movie soundtrack from film noir of the fifties. A gorgeous G minor melody then opens the zoo gates to the usual interminable soloing...

This is my christmas present for myself (owing to high cost), please enjoy in the so-called blogosphere.

Our Time is Numbered:


Full Spiral: