Music Mondays: Alan Braufman

I listen to music while I grade. If the music slips into the background too much, it doesn’t do much to ameliorate the situation. If the music is too insistent (or even unfamiliar), I find it hard to focus on reading student work. 

For better or for worse, I found myself consistently distracted this past week. I blame Bandcamp’s survey of “Loft Jazz” from the 1970s, which introduced me to Alan Braufman’s 1975 album Valley of Search. I have no idea why I didn’t listen to this album when I was exploring the output of India Navigation a few months ago. It featured saxophonist Alan Braufman with Cecil McBee on bass, Cooper-Moore on piano, David Lee on drums, and Ralph Williams on other percussion. I don’t know who Ralph Williams is.

The ensemble is brilliant with Braufman offering a wide range of sounds and tones which danced the ragged line between the familiar and the avant guard. McBee was inspired as usual with some nice solo moments throughout. Cooper-Moore’s dulcimer almost steals the show on the opening track. Check out the album below:    

Two years ago, Braufman released the recording of a live version of Valley of Search, Live in New York City, February 8, 1975. It was recorded for a radio program the year before the album’s release with William Parker on bass, John Clark on French horn, and Jim Schapperoew on drums. You can certainly hear the long shadow of Albert Ayler in “Little Nabil’s March”:

Finally, it is kind of cool that Braufman and Cooper-Moore collaborated on another album in 2020, The Fire Still Burns, obviously designed to reflect on Braufman’s development as a musician over the 45 years since Valley of Search. It is an altogether more relaxed, but also more reflective affair that also includes James Brandon Lewis on tenor saxophone who proves to be a nice complement to Braufman’s alto and flute. 

Here’s “Morning Bazaar” which feels like what my friend Sharon Carson would call “getting out the door music”: