This reissue of
Fusion and
Thesis, the two albums the new
Jimmy Giuffre 3 made in 1961, prior to their breakthrough and breakup in 1962, is nothing short of a revelation musically. Originally produced by
Creed Taylor, who was still respectable back then, the two LPs have been complete remixed and remastered by
ECM proprietor and chief producer
Manfred Eicher and
Jean Philippe Allard and contain complete material from both sessions resulting in one new track on
Fusion and three more on
Thesis. The music is
Giuffre at his finest -- at that point, finding a language with his two collaborators, pianist
Paul Bley and bassist
Steve Swallow (who hadn't made the permanent switch to electric then) -- that was outside even the
avant-garde at the time, yet in the tradition enough for some listeners and critics to be able to hold onto as modern
jazz. Both recordings make use of a profound use of subtlety in gesture -- this is more true of
Giuffre and
Bley than
Swallow, but without a drummer, the guy had a tough gig to hold down -- and a creative use of space, one that allowed for a free contrapuntal interplay between musicians while keeping their distance in order to keep the music in front of them. In other words, space was used as a way to communicate what not to do rather than what to play. While most improvisations did stick to ideas based on chord changes, there are moments, many of them on
Thesis, where the formal structures slipped into the ether and gave way to an improvisation that used silence as a cue to innovate and improvise (check
"Carla," "Sonic," and
"Flight" on
Thesis, and
"Venture" and
"Cry, Want," on
Fusion). The use of this space is brought to light in the
Eicher/
Allard remix which highlights and accents the physical distances the three men were playing from one another in the studio. While
Fusion features primarily the compositions of
Giuffre in his style of accenting counterpoint a la
Debussy and
Milhaud within a melodic framework, and making the counterpoint and its resultant interaction with other players the still point of harmonic invention (
"Brief Hesitation" and
"Scootin' About" on
Fusion, and
"Me Too" and
"Whirrr" on
Thesis). There are no corners in this music, no jagged edges, everything is rounded off, if not smooth, then at least warm -- no matter how complex the music becomes it has no air of academic elitism or dry didacticism about it, the emotions are transparent and expressed with understatement and grace. This reissue is perhaps, along with
Free Fall one of the most essential documents regarding the other side of early-'60s
jazz.
Giuffre falls clearly between the cracks of the then emergent
avant-guardists like
Coltrane's quartet,
Cecil Taylor,
Eric Dolphy, and
Ornette's band, and the
hard boppers like
Horace Silver,
Art Blakey,
Hank Mobley, and
Horace Parlan.
Giuffre didn't straddle fences; on
Fusion and
Thesis, he just walked through them. ~ Thom Jurek
