February was a bit of a rough month, and I miss the peace that comes with simply sitting early in the morning and writing, so we’re going to try some daily, shorter reviews and vainly try not only save my sanity but get through the massive pile of physical media I’ve been using to distract myself from (vaguely gestures at the world). So why not start with a little jazz? Drummer Elvin Jones is certainly no stranger to jazz heads, being part of John Coltrane’s most famous quartet. At least that’s how I always knew him, and I’m only just now beginning to venture into his post-career as a bandleader and solo artist. On The Mountain is a terrific primer to his more electric work, celebrating its 50th birthday this year so let’s take a short detour into the whats and whys below.

Let’s get the “what” out of the way first. Working in a trio format with Gene Perla on bass and Jan Hammer on keyboards, On The Mountain sits in the crossroads of electric jazz and fusion, which at first made no sense in my head but hopefully becomes clearer when you hear the opening track “Thorn Of A White Rose”. The very first thing is Jones practically exploding on the drums before Hammer and Perla come in with the main theme. There are definitely fusion elements, but as I listen I can easily hear this music in a more acoustic format – my thoughts went to late 60s Miles Davis, where Herbie Hancock was getting more into keyboards but still used his piano, and Tony Williams was bursting at the seams with every fill. This feels very much in that vein, with tracks like “Smoke In The Sun” really feeling at home in either decade.

The playing throughout is immaculate, as you’d expect. Beyond “the guy who did the Miami Vice theme” I know Hammer from his work in the seminal fusion group Mahavishnu Orchestra, and he’s outstanding here, flexing a more traditional, melodic sense than I’ve experienced elsewhere. Gene Perla was an unknown quantity; reading up on him shows a dedicated and experienced sideman and writer, having worked with both Sonny Rollins and Sarah Vaughn in addition to Jones. Both he and Hammer handle the songwriting duties, and whether it’s the more straight-ahead rock of something like the title track (Perla) or the more laid back ballad of “London Air” (Hammer) there’s a broad scope of styles to showcase Jones’s drumming. The trio format accentuates the space beautifully – with less instruments to cram in the soundstage the recording sounds spacious and really allows you to sit within the album. Even more credit to Jones’s sidemen, as Perla produced the record and Hammer engineered it.

As to the why? I’ve always been a sucker for masterfully produced albums, and jazz more than anything else has been at the forefront of recordings that just sound incredible to my ears. Over the course of the last year my love for the genre was re-ignited by my exposure to the Japanese jazz scene of the 70s, and labels like Three Blind Mice and East Wind introduced me to so many new artists. It was from that and specifically Masabumi Kikuchi that I swung back around to Jones – they released a collaborative album called Hollow Out in 1972 I’ve been trying to find for a while now. From there I came across this album, re-issued by Solid Records in Japan in 2019.

It’s strange, the avenues we travel to find new and exciting music to our ears. This was a great find; maybe not an absolute masterpiece of the form, but exciting and with plenty of great moments to make it a worthy addition to my collection.