Big John Patton:

Kansas City-born "Big" John Patton, who just re-released two albums of late-'60s material (Boogaloo and Understanding, both on Blue Note) and an album of new songs (Blue Planet Man on Evidence), is a cub from a different pride. He's soaked with blues hues, but his vision is cast on a host of different vistas. On the older material, Patton's touch tends more toward staccato than legato; his notes have a percussive edge, and the articulation is deliberate and even. Patton's also got a killer rhythmic sense that lets him twist a phrase 99 different ways and still come back to peg the beat like a nailgun. The liner notes for both Boogaloo and Blue Planet Man claim that Patton absorbed the legacy of the first wave of the avant-garde (C. Taylor, A. Ayler, etc.), but his writing is relatively straight. Patton's solos may edge into extended harmonies, but the structures are either repeated riffs or blues forms. The most you could say is that he may have been inoculated against avant-shock, and so sax collaborators like Harold Alexander (on the Blue Note albums) and John Zorn (BPM) have free run throughout the compositions.

The format for all three albums is basically identical: a statement of theme, then long vamps or runs through 12-bar changes, which leaves lots of open space for the soloists. Patton interrupts his fluid lines with sudden injections of different timbres and sustained chords. Alexander leaps further and higher into the upper register, where he waxes ecstatic with harmonics and overblowing; Zorn shrieks and skirls; guitarist Ed Cherry (on BPM) lopes.

Understanding, a trio date, is the more sedate of the Blue Note albums, but it underscores the empathy between Patton and Alexander. On songs like "Ding Dong," it's almost telepathic, with Alexander matching every inflection of the organ, down to the punchy tones and slight quaver of a sustained note. But Boogaloo, a quintet recording with good contributions from trumpeter Vincent McEwan, is the more satisfying release overall. The playing is scorching ("Spirit" and "Milk and Honey" are acetylene-hot), and Patton explores strange harmonic crags with strident and tense syncopations.

Blue Planet Man lacks the organic cohesion of the Blue Note discs but offers the most interesting writing. Songs like "Chip" or "Popeye" seem spurred into being by the edgy presence of the sidemen, and though it isn't as essential as the other releases, it still doesn't besmirch Patton's (hopefully still unfolding) legacy.