Henry Grimes & Marzette Watts - The Call

The working relationship between Henry Grimes and Perry Robinson, although sporadic, dated back to 1957, and Robinson invited the bassist to participate in his 1962 bop-and-swing-flavored-quartet debut recording for Savoy, on which they alternated original compositions. Three years later, Grimes returned the favor on his own free-style debut as a leader, formally influenced by Ornette and Ayler. The separate, exposed voices in the trio format prioritize Robinson’s now-capricious clarinet, most notably his broad range of tone colors, broken phrasing and Morse code repetition. Unlike typically expansive “free” playing, the solos here are primarily pointed and pithy – uncharacteristically, four of the six pieces are three-to-four minutes in length, including Grimes’ “Son of Alfalfa,” adapted from the same three-note motif featured in his “Farmer Alfalfa” from the Savoy album – with somber, subterranean themes frequently scored for unison clarinet and bowed bass, as in “For Django,” and employing episodes of three-part overlapping tempos, such as those found in “Fish Story.”

Grimes proves to be the fulcrum supporting these otherwise distinct programs, drawing upon his remarkably eclectic background, early in his career having provided the foundation for, among others, Rollins and Tristano, Ayler and Cecil Taylor, Mose Allison and McCoy Tyner, Gerry Mulligan and Pharoah Sanders. He was also one of the threads responsible for the tangle of musicians who combined for the first and only time under Marzette Watts’ direction. Grimes and drummer J.C. Moses worked together in 1965 on an Archie Shepp session. In September 1966, he collaborated on Don Cherry’s Symphony for Improvisers album alongside vibist Karl Berger. Two months later, Grimes jousted with guitarist Sonny Sharrock on Sanders’ Tauhid. (Sharrock then appeared on Byard Lancaster’s It’s Not Up To Us, not released until 1968, but according to some sources recorded on December 8, 1966, the same date as that given for the Marzette Watts session.) It’s not been documented how Watts assembled this particular crew, but Grimes is the common denominator.

As for Watts, his posthumous neglect does not reflect the breadth of his creativity, as a visual artist, recording engineer, civil rights activist, experimental filmmaker, teacher, and multi-instrumentalist (in the early 1970s he added synthesizers to his palette). The music here is a product of his involvement with the spirit of a community in action. Spontaneous in detail, the individual instrumental voices coalesce into a consensus of reciprocating colors and textures – Berger’s bright, metallic vibes; Sharrock’s guitar injecting quivering koto-like contours and bristling clusters; the horns’ passionate moans and brusque flurries; J.C. Moses’ tenacious drums – symbolically representing the idiomatic abandon of Watts’ abstract expressionist canvases as much as the heightened awareness of mutual rapport. Thus the fluctuating, synergistic collective “Backdrop for Urban Revolution” implies a commitment to interact with unconventional, stimulating, alternative realities to achieve the desired changes. Marzette Watts recorded one other album, in 1968, for Savoy, then worked behind the scenes in record and film production until his passing in 1998. Ironically, Henry Grimes also removed himself from performing in the late ‘60s, his whereabouts unknown for some thirty years, until his career was revived in the early 2000s. He passed in 2020. Their music, however, celebrating the significance of free expression, has a message still vital and relevant today.

Art Lange, Chicago, April 2026