Record date: August 4,10 & 22, 1995
1995 was the year of Mal Waldron’s 70th birthday. For that occasion Mal went on tour with his entire family. His second and then current wife Hiromi arranged a world tour with the complete Waldron family. This meant his ex wife Elaine was there too with their two children: Lori and Mala. Plus the children that came out of Mal’s marriage with Hiromi: Naru, Marianne, Malcolm Jr. plus the twins Michael and Sara. According to Jeanne Lee, who was also traveling with them: sometimes there were more Waldron’s on the train than Japanese. The tour included an extensive stay in Japan, the homeland of Hiromi. He recorded multiple albums during that stay including this one, another one with Jeanne Lee and Toru Tenda, a duet with his daughter and two duets with Japanese drummer Takeo Moriyama.
1995 was also a very important year for Japan. It had been 50 years ago the American air forces dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just like John Coltrane, Mal was deeply impressed with the enormous impact it had on those cities and the Japanese people. He was invited to play in temples and at memorial services and two compositions became a set part of his repertoire during those concerts: White Road and Black Rain. Both based on poems written of the devastating effects of those weapons of mass destruction. Some of the music was captured on record: this is one of them and the other is the White Road/Black Rain record on Tokuma.
This really is one of my more preferred Waldron albums that contain vocals. Jeanne Lee really is one of a kind. Her interpretation of “Seagulls of Kristiansund” is not only a very original and creative one, it’s drop dead gorgeous. The warmth of her voice sounds so well really reminding of a floating seagull. But it’s also her thoughtful imitation of the animal with her voice that sounds so refreshing. The way she goes down with her voice as she sings they ‘dive from the sky’… It’s a fun listen. Then there’s some more free improvising with her voice on songs like Circumambulation. It all remains really accessible and the way she converses with Mal is very impressive. The way they circle around each other with their subtle tones is beautiful. And there’s White Road! A composition based on a poem by a survivor of the Atomic Bomb. Part from the beautiful translated lyrics, the music is equally beautiful. It has this dark and sad mysticism over it that is so characteristic for Mal’s own writing. It’s a deeply emotional statement that truly reflects the horrors of the destroyed city of Hiroshima.
But there are also some parts where they lose me a bit as a listener. Parts like Black Rain that really gives a good resemble of the anger and darkness but fail to catch me. I like a bit of chaos in music and enjoy the freedom but still have trouble connecting with it as it contains vocals. For some reason it starts to annoy me after a few minutes. It really is the only downside to me of this record. And those that are more open minded to that kind of music probably really disagree with me.
This is some highly creative music and another fascinating turn in Mal’s career. It was released on the BVHaast label which was run by Dutch musician Willem Breuker. With a median price on Discogs of 30 euro’s this really is one of the more rare cd’s. It contains some nice liner’s by Jeanne Lee and the lyrics of the vocal parts. Quite a lot of the music from this tour is not easy to obtain unfortunately. This really is a must have if you are vocal jazz fan.
A white road
A white road in Hiroshima
Mother walked that scorching road
Barefoot
Working clothes all torn
And I, who had been born
Just 40 days before
Held in those arms
Gazed up with eyes of innocence
To where the deep blue sky
Stretched wide, she said
The white mushroom cloud
Moved like a sea slug
Growing wide, and wider still
Mid-summer phantoms
And these hateful things
That happened long ago
Are so infinitely sad
The image of that single
Long white road
Lies in the corner of my mother’s
Heart and mine
And does not even try to die
The road stretches on and on
An endless road
White dust-covered and soiled by grief
The road began that moment
The road without and end
The road we’ve walked without a pause
For fourteen years
Mother is tired
And I am tired
And when beset by waves
Of sadness and exhaustion
She lay a while to rest
Her tears fell on my face
And left their patterns in the dust
A white road
The white road of Hiroshima
A poem written by Syo Ito in 1959 (14 years old)
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