Joe Farrell “Quartet” (1970)

Joe Farrell (1937-86) never set the jazz world on fire. But following a series of fine records for the star-making CTI Records label, it looked like he might.

By 1970, Farrell was a veteran of the Maynard Ferguson band (1960-61), George Russell (1964-66), Jaki Byard (1965) and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis big band (1966-70). Fronting the highly-regarded post-Coltrane Elvin Jones trio (1967-71) finally brought Farrell the notice and attention he deserved.

The ever-flexible Farrell also kept a busy schedule in the studios, recording with such jazz heavyweights as Charles Mingus, Stanley Turrentine, Jimmy Smith, Dizzy Gillespie and Herbie Hancock. Later, he would go on to work on notable pop records by Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, Santana, Daryl Hall and John Oates, James Brown, the Bee Gees and even Parliament.

Perhaps one of the reasons – there may be more – for his ultimate lack of notoriety is that Farrell was an adaptable reed player, able to meet whatever the occasion called for. He played pretty much every reed instrument, including the alto, tenor and soprano sax, flute and oboe. Indeed, Farrell was a veteran of all, but a champion of none – although some may prefer him on one instrument over another (my choice was always Farrell’s flute).

Included among Farrell’s prodigious studio sessions are such Creed Taylor productions as George Benson’s Tell It Like It Is (1969) and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Tide and Stone Flower (both recorded a few months prior to Joe Farrell Quartet in 1970).

During the Jobim sessions, Taylor offered Farrell the opportunity to record his own solo debut for the producer’s fledgling and newly-independent label, CTI Records.

The result was the uncharacteristically- (for a Creed Taylor production) and generically-titled Joe Farrell Quartet. Taylor, as he was wont to do, recruited an all-star lineup of musicians in support of Farrell including Chick Corea on piano, John McLaughlin on guitar, Dave Holland on bass and CTI All Star Jack DeJohnette on drums.

All, at the time, were affiliated in some way with Miles Davis’s striking and stirring electric groups. Yet outside of Miles, the Corea-Holland-DeJohnette trifecta had previously waxed the pianist’s Is (1969), as well as two of saxophonist Eric Kloss’s records.

Taylor had previously worked with Corea on Verve sessions for Cal Tjader (Soul Burst, Along Comes Cal) and Stan Getz (Sweet Rain). But Farrell and Corea were both old friends. The two had originally met in 1960 and would work together on and off throughout the remainder of Farrell’s life. Previously, Farrell and Corea had featured on percussionist Willie Bobo’s Bobo’s Beat (1963) and, later, on the pianist’s own solo debut, Tones for Joan’s Bones (recorded 1966, issued 1968).

Holland and DeJohnette were both new to CTI, but while this would be the bassist’s only (!) session for the label, the drummer went on to appear on many of the label’s later releases and, like Joe Farrell, became a charter member of the CTI All Stars.

II.

Although Joe Farrell Quartet gets off to a promising start with John McLaughlin’s superb “Follow Your Heart,” and contains at least two worthy highlights (Farrell’s “Molten Glass,” Corea’s “Song of the Wind”), it is, ultimately, a disappointing experience.

It is neither Farrell’s best or most memorable outing for CTI – those are probably Outback (1971) and Moon Germs (1972) – nor does it stand among the label’s first- or even second-call releases. Joe Farrell Quartet is about the eighth album Taylor recorded for his newly-independent label and, at the time, money was in short supply.

Compounding the issue, was that the producer was still determining his label’s identity, waxing fusion and soul jazz records, as well as folk and rock efforts.

That gave the artist a bit more flexibility with song choices and supporting musicians than Taylor ever permitted before or since, benefitting veteran soloists on discs like Red Clay and Sugar but likely dooming such solo debuts as Black Out and Joe Farrell Quartet (the title alone suggests a lost opportunity).

Programming John McLaughlin’s exquisite “Follow Your Heart” to open the record was smart. But it sets up an expectation that cannot be satisfied, particularly as McLaughlin disappears from the record until the album’s closing moments – and he’s barely perceptible even there.

The song, delivered in a hypnotic 11/8 time, started life as “Arjen’s Bag,” a highlight of McLaughlin’s own solo debut, Extrapolation (recorded 1969, but not issued in the U.S. until 1972). McLaughlin himself later recorded the song on solo acoustic guitar, under the new title, for My Goal’s Beyond (1971).¹

Here, the group is a quartet without Corea. Farrell plays tenor. You can practically sing “Follow Your Heart” to the airy melody, which has an almost “In a Silent Way” quality about it. McLaughlin shimmers on his restrained and musical solo but shivers and tingles gorgeously elsewhere.

“Follow Your Heart” was issued in a 3-minute and 19-second edit as a single, with the added credit “Featuring John McLaughlin on guitar.” While this may have helped the song win some airplay at the time, “Follow Your Heart” never became the classic that such early CTI singles as “Sugar” and “Red Clay” did. But, hit or miss, the song is among one of the best in CTI’s recorded legacy.

Farrell’s brief, experimental “Collage for Polly” toys with echo effects and tape delays that seem wholly out of place in a Creed Taylor production. Here, Farrell is on soprano sax with the quartet (minus McLaughlin) mining what sounds like a dream sequence in a spooky movie. “Collage for Polly” is surely one of the most unusual, and plainly avant-garde pieces in the entire CTI canon.

It serves well, though, as a preface to Farrell’s outside-within “Circle in the Square.” Again, Farrell is on soprano and oboe here, with the quartet sans McLaughlin.

What’s most notable here is the trio backing Farrell. All are seemingly doing their own thing, but perfectly in tune with one another. Little wonder that the alchemy, particularly between the pianist and bassist, was successfully captured a few months later on the ECM trio outing A.R.C., with Barry Altschul in place of DeJohnette.

The original LP’s second side kicks off with Farrell’s fetching bossa nova “Molten Glass.” This is the last of the disc’s quartet tracks and the first featuring Farrell on flute. This is one instrument where Farrell excels. He doesn’t necessarily possess the distinctive signature of fellow CTI All Star Hubert Laws, but the musicality of his delivery, particularly notable in solos is always compelling.

The song, which comes in at a breezy five minutes, sadly denies a solo spot to Corea, who comps beautifully – with Holland – behind Farrell. Although Farrell never officially recorded “Molten Glass” again, he wisely kept the song in his repertoire and can be heard playing it on a live recording from the Netherlands captured in 1985.

Farrell, again on flute, pairs with Holland for the brief and seemingly pointless “Alter Ego.” Although Farrell is all dreamy echo effects again, Holland helms a muscular undercurrent that could have inspired Farrell to make much more of the song.

Corea’s ethereal “Song of the Wind” is, surprisingly, taken as a duet for Farrell and the pianist. Farrell opens and closes on soprano and oboe and solos on flute. One wonders what the quartet would have made of this. As it is, though, there is more of a classical quality to the piece than is heard elsewhere.

Corea himself first recorded the song – with Holland and DeJohnette – on Sun Dance (recorded 1969, issued 1972 and reissued on CD in 2002 as The Complete “Is” Sessions). The song also appears as a solo piece on Corea’s Piano Improvisations, Volume 1 (1971).

Little wonder that when Creed Taylor reissued Joe Farrell Quartet in 1976, he gave the record a much more fitting title: Song of the Wind. It is a wholly better and much more apt description of the entire record. (Even the new cover art suited the record nicely. The photograph, credited to “White Gate,” is the work of Taylor himself.) The title also beautifully characterizes the indelible chemistry shared between Farrell and Corea.

The album’s closer, “Motion,” although credited to Corea, is less of a “song” than an on-the-spot group improvisation. This free-for-all features all five of the disc’s credited musicians, but it never comes across as the sound of a quintet: DeJohnette is dialed way back in the mix and McLaughlin, who makes his brief return, is restricted to effects only.

“Motion,” also the title of a classic Creed Taylor production from 1961 by saxophonist Lee Konitz (who would have sounded perfectly comfortable here), is, perhaps, the least structured track to ever appear on a record made by this producer. It is like nothing else on CTI and a direction that Farrell would fail to pursue again.

Farrell’s follow-up, the admittedly more engaging Outback (1971) – another quartet outing, again with Corea – is, not unexpectedly, much more structured and in line with CTI’s mission and Farrell’s own musicianship. It is also notably more electric, but, like Joe Farrell Quartet, Outback neither compromises nor concedes in obvious ways to commerciality.

Years later, Farrell would disavow the kind of music that dominates this record. “For a long time things seemed to be moving forward,” Farrell told Leonard Feather in 1978, “but it seems to me that when the quote-unquote avantgarde music, so called, came to the forefront, that was the beginning of the demise of jazz as we knew it.

“I took part in it for a while, because I was on that New York scene and everyone was into it, but it never was really my cup of tea.

“I don’t dig music without tone, without form. My original reason for wanting to play jazz was – that I enjoyed playing with chord changes, with melody and harmony and rhythm. Those are the values I still believe in.”

Joe Farrell Quartet was released in or around August 1970, the same month Farrell won the DownBeat critics poll for soprano saxophone and a mere month after it was recorded. The album garnered little to no notice or acclaim, but did score a four-star review by Doug Ramsey in the June 10, 1971, issue of DownBeat.

On the other hand, time has been good to Joe Farrell Quartet, beginning with the aforementioned reissue, newly-titled Song of the Wind. The newly-reissued album even earned a five-star review in the June 16, 1977, issue of DownBeat by Mikal Gilmore, who wrote:

“Song Of The Wind epitomizes a brave, transitional period in jazz, when Coltrane’s shadow was still powerful enough to make aspiring musicians quake, and electricity was a curious but new and friendly partner, rather than the common and predominant factor it has lately become.”

Also in 1976, the Spanish arm of CTI (distributed by the Hispavox label) paired Joe Farrell Quartet with its follow-up, Outback (1971), for a compilation titled Super Sessions.

The disc was also among the very first batch of CTI records to be issued on CD in 1987, with ad copy accurately proclaiming: “In such respected company, Farrell more than held his own, not only as a brilliant instrumentalist, but as a gifted composer as well.”

Joe Farrell Quartet is also included – in full – on the five-album European collection Original Album Classics (2015) and on the worthy three-album British set on BGO, Joe Farrell Quartet/Outback/Moon Germs (2018).

III.

Over the next six years, Farrell recorded five more records and the vastly underrated Benson & Farrell (1976 – with George Benson) for the CTI label, as well as two dozen sessions for such CTI artists as Airto, Don Sebesky, Hank Crawford, Lalo Schifrin, George Benson and Grant Green.

In 1972, Corea invited Farrell to join what ultimately became one of fusion’s seminal bands, Return to Forever, along with bassist Stanley Clarke and the husband-and-wife team of drummer/percussionist Airto Moriera and vocalist Flora Purim.

Farrell spent a little more than a year with the group, recording Corea’s exceptional Return to Forever (1972) and the band’s official debut, Light as a Feather (1973), featuring Farrell on flute for the first recording of Corea’s now-standard “Spain.” The reed player eventually left RTF to form his own quartet in 1973, with Joe Beck on guitar, Herb Bushler on bass and Jimmy Madison on drums, all of whom factor on the CTI disc Upon This Rock (1974).

In March 1978, Farrell relocated to California, following his friend, Chick Corea, out to the west coast. He had hoped that he would find more opportunities there and, after a number of struggles, ended up recording several interesting records for Xanadu, Contemporary and other smaller labels (a highlight here is “Bara-Bara” from 1979’s Skateboard Park), but none of that really ever broke out or broke through.

The alchemy between Farrell and Corea also continued on record, as the two popped up on each other’s recordings through at least 1980. Farrell, though, died at the terribly young age of 48 in January 1986, due to leukemia, while Corea lived and worked successfully for another 35 years.

Farrell’s last recording, Three Way Mirror, was a collaboration made with former Return to Forever bandmates Airto Moriera and Flora Purim: a worthy and wonderful disc very well worth exploring. The disc features Airto’s intoxicating “Misturada,” first recorded by Brazilian pianist Manfredo Fest in 1969 and magnificently captured – with Airto and Flora in attendance – on the CTI All Stars reunion disc Montreux Jazz Festival 2009 (2010).

About the Cover: To my knowledge, the photographer Pete Turner (1934-2017) never discussed or featured the Joe Farrell Quartet cover image in any book or monograph. To be sure, it is an unusual one. The image is a likely composite that is presented in reverse with an odd green tint (that highlights the photo’s weirdness) on the back side of the original LP’s gatefold sleeve.

The image seems most suited to the track “Molten Glass,” hinting that this may have been considered as a working title for the album at some point. “Molten Glass” would certainly have made a stronger, more descriptive – or even more ambiguous – title, one that would surely have appealed to Taylor’s sensibilities. It might also have helped the song gain more traction in the public consciousness.

While suggesting a lit torch or candle, Turner’s image conveys a sense of “lightning at the fingertips,” a wholly apt description of Farrell’s prowess, but far more befitting the “finger playing” of a pianist or guitarist. The red part of the image appears to be the glossy varnish on a woman’s fingernail, crudely removed from its finger and superimposed over a sheet with holes that let in light.

Suggesting a lit torch or candle, the image signals a music that keeps the flame of creativity burning (the album is hardly filled with torch songs, after all). Additionally, designer Sam Antupit’s bright red framing would help the high-gloss cover of the original album to stand out in the store. It’s even redder than Freddie Hubbard’s CTI debut Red Clay, released three months before Joe Farrell Quartet.

Endnote:

1. Fellow Facebook user Peter Key alerted me to the fact that “Follow Your Heart” was covered again by the British fusion/prog-rock band Soft Machine on their 1973 album Seven. Here, the song is titled “Day’s Eye” and is credited to keyboardist Mike Ratledge. The bass line and main melody have been modified and, notably, the time signature has changed from McLaughlin’s original 11/8 to 9/8, which gives the song a bit more of a funk feel. “Seven,” Peter notes, is “an album that has long sounded to me like it could have been a CTI release.” ↩︎