Almost Lost in the RSD Torrent

The return of Garrett Saracho

For the second time in the last two years, Andrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of Jazz is Dead have re-animated the career of an influential and long-overlooked musician. Primarily by facilitating jam sessions.

Last August, the producers collaborated with Brian Jackson -- the keyboardist best known for his trailblazing partnership with poet Gil Scott Heron -- on an album of new material for their Jazz Is Dead series. Then, earlier this year, Jackson issued his first solo album in 20 years, This Is Brian Jackson, a poised funk/fusion set notable for its compositional invention. It's discussed here.

Now comes the return of the Los Angeles pianist and composer Garrett Saracho via a similar two-pronged schedule -- an inventive Jazz is Dead session (it's Volume 15!) came out in mid November, followed closely by last week’s Black Friday Record Store Day vinyl reissue of Saracho's long-vanished 1973 debut for Impulse!, En Medio. Saracho performed the record, which has several extended through-composed pieces, on November 26 at the Lodge in Los Angeles.

This qualifies as one of the more unexpected reboots of recent years. Saracho and others were among the many improvising artists in the orbit of pianist Horace Tapscott in the Los Angeles of the late 1960s and early '70s. This community thrived on experimentation and cross-cultural exploration; Saracho's area of interest fell under the now-almost-useless catchall term "Latin-jazz," but carried lofty spiritual messages and relied on elaborate orchestration and impressively coordinated changes of tempo and meter.

En Medio was recorded over a May weekend in 1973. Its extended-length tunes and sudden surges of intensity presented challenges at radio: Though steeped in tradition and animated by Afro-Cuban rhythms, this music stood apart from pretty much everything else going on at the time. (The press release for the impeccably rendered new vinyl version suggests that in addition, the album suffered from a lack of label support and the lingering effects of Middle East oil embargo.)

Garrett Saracho didn't make a followup. Instead, he shifted gears and began a career in the film industry -- working first as a carpenter, then as an editor for several blockbuster films, then becoming a screenwriter and filmmaker in his own right. He still created original music in his home studio, and toured several times with Redbone, the Latin-rock band fronted by his cousins. The Jazz Is Dead release, which picks up stylistically right where El Medio left off, represents his first new music in nearly 50 years.

Both records show Saracho as a master blender of influences: His grooves are anchored by the quick-fingered soul-jazz basslines associated with Mongo Santamaria, then adorned with layers of funk keyboard chording and gorgeously inventive orchestrations involving flute, guitar, vibraphone and strings. On some pieces, the horns take lusty catcalling solos; elsewhere they snap out syncopated lines that occupy a zone somewhere between Earth Wind and Fire and the Fania All Stars.

Listening to En Medio now, the orchestration leaps out among the most striking elements. Saracho's music can sometimes seem overly arranged, in a '60s-cop-show way, with moments of percolating tension created by a lone violin that eventually lead to gorgeous placid natural landscapes or splashy call-and-answer ensemble themes.

This music is elaborate. And, it must be said, that is not a crime, especially when it's executed with such precision. The shifts in tone and density ask a lot of the musicians -- they have to follow the score while conjuring Saracho’s specific feels and vibes while also attempting to communicate with each other and with the orishas. And they deliver, over and over, on big theme statements and little sideways interludes.

And though these musical elements are somewhat period-specific, the music itself is not: You don't close your eyes and find yourself magically transported back to the free-swinging days of 1973, where the theme from Mannix loops endlessly. Instead, you are transported to a world of the possible, where you're reminded that, in a not-so-distant galaxy, musicians like Garrett Saracho dreamed up — and then manifested — realms of sound that demanded lots from the participants and from listeners.

Yes, we have a digital suggestion box. Please share your favorite overlooked/underloved records at: echolocatormusic@gmail.com.