A Spirit Speaks

映画監督スパイク・リーの父としても知られるベース奏者、ビル・リー率いるファミリー・バンド、ディセンダンツ・オブ・マイク・アンド・フィービーがストラタ・イースト・レコーズからリリースした唯一のアルバム(LP)にしてスピリチュアル・ジャズの名作として有名な「スピリット・スピークス」がデラックス・エディション仕様で再発CD化。

Strata Easts A Spirit Speaks is the lone album by Descendants of Mike & Phoebe, a New York-based group founded and led by bassist/composer Bill Lee with his siblings, composer/pianist Consuela Lee Moorhead, flugelhornist Clif Lee, and soprano vocalist Grace Lee Mims. Sonny Brown played drums and Billy Higgins provided percussion alternately. Bill Lee was the father of directors Spike and Cinque Lee. The collective gathered to create a suite of music in tribute to their enslaved ancestors. Despite the immense creativity and stylistic reach of Strata East, the recording stands as an outlier in its catalog. Clif had played on Clifford Jordans classic Glass Bead Games (1973), to which he and Clif contributed the composition "John Coltrane," that also appears as "Coltrane" here. The ten-track album crosses spiritual and soul-jazz, gospel, blues, Latin jazz, spiritual soul, and folk traditions. It opens with Moorheads "Two Songs for a Boy Named Mark" consisting of "Little Baby" and "Soliloquy to a Man-Child." Fantastically sung by Mims, the lyrics use the birth of Jesus as a metaphor for the Civil Rights struggle via Latinized hard bop and swinging gospel. The second song finds Bill playing arco, with Mims offering a tender, poignant lyric with her soprano in a melody worthy of Ellington. "Coltrane," long-regarded as the sets standout, is a glorious modal jazz tune led by Bills lyric bassline, adorned by Moorheads piano and fueled by Browns syncopated trap kit melding modal blues and eastern undertones. Lees solo at the tracks end is transcendent. Moorhead also composed the uptempo "Well Done, Weldon" with a bluesy attack that recalls Ramsey Lewis as she careens across soul-jazz and fingerpopping Latin grooves. Brown dazzles with breaks and accents as Bill walks the changes. The title track was also composed by Moorhead. Its carried with elegance and grace; Clif plays flugelhorn around the rich piano and lyrical bassline as Mims sings wordlessly. Clifs unhurried solo leads the tune to crescendo. The band delivers a truly resonant version of Thomas A. Dorseys gospel standard "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." With Mims soprano adding praise and gratitude, Bill plays a sensitive arco atop Moorheads chords and brushed cymbals. Its followed by a scorching tempo on the traditional folk song "Boll Weevil." Moorhead and Brown pace the band in the furious intro before Bill and Brown break it down in a stridently lovely conclusion. The bassists waltz "Too Little, Too Late" is offered as a vocal duet with Mims. Bills vocals are often a bit flat, yet when combined with Mims, they create drama, tension, and release in unison and call-and-response. Add to this Clifs glorious flugelhorn playing and Browns canny, decorative drumming. While its true that A Spirit Speaks is one of the more obscure albums to be released on Strata East, it is among the most memorable and consistently beautiful. It is so artfully rendered and welcoming that it amounts to a spiritual jazz masterpiece. ~ Thom Jurek