By Michael Ullman

These Stata-East recordings are the result of a special moment in the history of jazz, when some musicians brilliantly took charge of their own careers. Luckily for us, the music is still strikingly fresh and contemporary.

Stanley Cowell, Musa: Ancestral Streams (Strata-East)

Music Inc., Live at Slugs Volume One and Two (Strata-East)

As any of his solo albums — such as 1974’s Musa: Ancestral Streams — demonstrate, Stanley Cowell was a grand virtuoso whose wide-ranging, two-handed command made the piano seem somehow larger than it was. When he exuberantly played pieces like his own “Maimoun,” the pianist radiated joy. Cowell was a revered sideman as well. I first heard him in Detroit during the early ’70s with the quartet called Music, Inc, whose 1970 live recordings are reissued here. Led by Cowell and trumpeter Charles Tolliver, and featuring bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Jimmy Hopps, in Detroit, Music Inc. performed at a cooperative concert space that was called Strata West. (The space obviously faced struggles: it moved at least once. I remember expecting to hear Cecil Taylor at the first venue and the pianist didn’t show up.)

Cooperation was the name of the game in the early ’70s. Otherwise it seemed in some ways a relatively grim time for mainstream, to say nothing of avant-garde, jazz musicians. Major labels had mostly lost interest. Fusion reigned. Politically, though, jazz players drew on the then popular rhetoric of self-determination: rather than roll over, they produced their own concerts and founded their own record labels and established their own concert spaces. It was often a struggle to succeed. I remember hearing trombonist Grachan Moncur III appear with Sam Rivers at Rivers’s Studio Rivbea. The paying audience consisted of me and a friend: all the other attendees were Rivers’s buddies. Nonetheless, they played for three hours. In Detroit (in my experience) there were two active cooperative spaces dedicated to jazz: Strata West and the Ibo Cultural Center. In these spaces, the smallish audiences got to see their heroes close-up without being pestered to buy drinks. We not only heard Cecil Taylor and Roland Kirk and dozens of others — we had the opportunity to hang out with them.

Cowell was a favorite. Born in 1941, he was in his late 20s when I first heard him. (The pianist passed away much later, on December 17, 2020.) His first album as a leader was 1969’s Blues for the Viet Cong. By 1970, when he was traveling with Music Inc., he had already recorded some superior albums with a succession of great contemporary musicians. He was on Marion Brown’s Why Not?, Bobby Hutcherson’s Patterns and Spiral, Jack DeJohnette’s The DeJohnette Complex, and Gary Bartz’s Another Earth. He had been part of the Max Roach Quintet that also featured his soon-to-be collaborator, Charles Tolliver. He was also becoming known as a composer. Roach’s 1968 album Members Don’t Get Weary includes versions of three Cowell compositions: “Equipoise,” “Effi,” and “Abstrutions.” Later, Cowell would travel with the Heath Brothers band.

“Equipoise” is probably Cowell’s most covered composition. Before the pianist got to it on his own session, it was recorded by Jack DeJohnette, Max Roach, and Roy Haynes. (DeJohnette plays the melody on the melodica.) Cowell’s solo version on Musa remains my favorite. His deep sound, distinct phrasing, and precise accenting makes this appealing tune ring out confidently. Musa opens with a stomping piece with an odd title: “Abscretions.” It’s tempting to focus on the pianist’s rocking left hand because of its blaring power, whether Cowell is using it to play a basic chord sequence or engage in a conversation with the right hand. Whatever the strategy, Cowell fits it all together in the grandest of ways. The pianist’s “Prayer for Peace” isn’t the ballad one might expect: it’s another vigorous two-handed masterpiece that finds the musician toying with dynamics. Peace, he seems to be reminding us, is an aspiration — it is not a current reality. After a deceptive, out-of-tempo introduction, “Maimoun” settles into a pleasing groove. Its rhythms and melody remind this listener of Abdullah Ibrahim’s solo vehicles. Both “Maimoun” and “Emil Danenberg” were also recorded by Cowell for his best-known album, Illusion Suite (ECM). Danenberg was a famous piano teacher and administrator whose varied career included accompanying the famous vocalist Jerome Hines and serving as the president of Oberlin. On “Travelin’ Man,” Cowell turns to electronics to set the background as he plays — or perhaps plucks — the melody on kalimba. “Departure No. 1” is a breathtaking pianistic display.

Music Inc, Live at Slugs Volume One and Two begins with an upbeat tune that was given a depressing title. “Drought” defies the title’s prophecy: it’s a quintessential hard-bopping number that trumpeter Charles Tolliver rips through. It’s the faster pieces that impress me the most in the performances on these albums. “Our Second Father” is dedicated to John Coltrane, who had passed three years previously. Tolliver plays the melody while leaving room for breaks by drummer Hopps, who isn’t bothered by the rattling tempo. Later, cued by Tolliver, the band changes tempo. You have to be extremely flexible to play in this quartet. Tolliver sometimes dwells on held notes, which accents the slow-moving wave of his vibrato. One of the best examples of this is the trumpeter’s introduction to “Felicite,” who must have been a sweet woman. It’s a ballad written by Cecil McBee. Tolliver uses McBee’s piece to show off his breath control while Cowell and McBee take it out of tempo. These recordings are the result of a special moment in jazz history, when some musicians brilliantly took charge of their own careers. Luckily for us, the music is still strikingly fresh and contemporary.

For over 30 years, Michael Ullman has written a bimonthly jazz column for Fanfare Magazine, for which he also reviews classical music. He has emeritus status at Tufts University, where for 45 years he taught in the English and Music Departments, specializing in modernist writers and nonfiction writing in English, and jazz and blues history in music. He studied classical clarinet. The author or co-author of two books on jazz, he has written on jazz and classical music for the Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, High Fidelity, Stereophile, Boston Phoenix, Boston Globe, and other venues. He plays piano badly.