In 2011, the venerable
Cuneiform
label released
Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop - April '69
, an audio and video document of
John Surman
's live ten-piece jazz orchestra delivering five hard original tracks that reveal his canny depth and diversity as a young composer, arranger, and bandleader. The saxophonist was busy throughout 1969: He'd just completed recording his second album,
How Many Clouds Can You See
(released in 1970) and played on 11 additional albums in 1969, including
John McLaughlin
's
Extrapolation
.
2025's
Flashpoints and Undercurrents
amounts to a historic document. It contains the five selections from the 2011 release -- here, all are extended takes -- and replaces the video with a second audio disc from the same sessions that includes eight additional tracks, most of them unissued.
Surman
assembled a cast of peers and mentors. He played baritone and soprano saxes alongside tenorists
Ronnie Scott
and
Alan Skidmore
with
Mike Osborne
on alto. The brass section was composed of trumpeter
Kenny Wheeler
and trombonists
Malcolm Griffiths
Erich Kleinschuster
.
Fritz Pauer
played piano in the rhythm section with bassist
Harry Miller
and drummer
Alan Jackson
.
Set-opener "Jack Knife" is offered in driving, big-band hard bop style with a knotty head for the horns;
Wheeler
solos hard, first over the rhythm section before the saxes and trombones engage one another in conversation. Trombonists solo next with incendiary gusto. The harmonic counterpoint
builds allows for all the voices to be heard.
Osborne
's alto solo here is one of his early best. The gorgeous midtempo ballad "Gratuliere" appeared on the 2011 set, but it's two-and-a-half sumptuous minutes longer here, revealing the detail in
's soprano as a guide to the tune's expressionist swing. (The tune owes a bit to both
Tony Scott
Oliver Nelson
.) "Hallo Thursday" is a modal jazz tune that relies more on open piano chords and unassuming bass vamps before
's flügelhorn -- joined by
Scott
-- add flow, heft, and eventually, as the other instruments fall in under him, resonance and poignancy. "Mayflower" is a full minute longer here and introduced by
Miller
before the band -- heavily under the influence of the
John Coltrane Quartet
-- adds dynamic and color while falling back from the free jazz edge, transforming the tune into a kinetic exercise in exploratory swing. Other highlights include a nearly 12-minute version of "When Fortune Smiles." It leans heavily on the nearly spiritual interplay between the rhythm section,
's alto, and
's soprano. "Aqua Regis" follows with big-band fierceness that colors mostly inside the lines. "Dallab" is an eerie modal blues (think
Gil Evans
) with gorgeous piano, bass, and trumpet play, while the brass and reeds underscore it with unintrusive authority around
's melodic theme. Whether you have the 2011 set or not,
is a major contribution to the British jazz canon that further fleshes out the early profile of
as a musical giant.~ Thom Jurek