Harry Miller

Different Times, Different Places

(Ogun Records)

I remember him as the bulwark bassist of a monster trio that used to play most weeks in a public bar, smoke-filled and cramped, where beyond what you paid for a pint of bitter there was no cost to hear some of the finest avant-garde musicians in Britain like drummer John Stevens, pianist Stan Tracey and the archbassist born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1941 Harry Miller.

This was an unremarkable pub called The Plough in Stockwell, south London, during the early '70s. Miller lived in a council flat with his wife Hazel - the co-founder of Ogun Records - just up the road, near Stockwell Tube station.

He came to London as an exile from apartheid in 1961, in the wake of other epochal South African musicians like drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo, altoist Dudu Pukwana, bassist Johnny Dyani and pianist Chris McGregor - all members of the Blue Notes who blew such storms within the relatively placid British jazz scene of the time.

Like them he was a torch within British jazz, flaring for a little more than two decades, before dying in the Netherlands in 1983, when a huge wind caused the van that he, other band mates and his bass were riding in, to leave the road.

It was a tragic loss to all music and the difficult but glorious art of the bass.

Miller was one of its prime exponents, and if you want to know how he did it listen to this record.

It is made up of two sessions, one in London in 1973 with Moholo-Moholo, McGregor, Nick Evans on trombone and the miraculous British altoist Mike Osborne.

The other, from 1976, was recorded at the Chateauvallon Festival in France, with Moholo-Moholo and Osborne, but with three other Englishmen - trombonist Malcolm Griffiths, trumpeter Mark Charig and the Bristol pianist Keith Tippett.

The opening London track is the beautifully balladic Bloomfield, in which Miller's pulsating strings ground Osborne's singing alto as McGregor's notes gradually take strength.

This rhapsodic soon changes for the fleeting pace of Quandry with Evans's quicksilver slides racing through the first section before Osborne comes rampaging in, fronting Moholo-Moholo's crashing drums.

Evans comes blustering in, with passages which sometimes sound as if he is in the midst of a New Orleans street parade.

McGregor's fiery fingers rediscover all his keys, and behind everything is Miller's eternal pulse, adding a universal life to all his confreres.

The horns blow out a familiar riff on Touch Hungry, then Evans's long, growling chorus gives sound to the needy stomach before Osborne breaks in alongside Miller's phenomenal bounce.

McGregor hurtles through his notes, as free as a bird above the veldtlands before Miller's bass has a jumping, springing interlude and the quintet reunites for a final ensemble.

The opus Mofolo is the first Chateauvallon track and the extra horn creates a much fuller sound, another layer of brass with Charig's edge-filled trumpet sound responding to Tippett's combustive piano phrases and Harry's throbbing heartbeat.

Osborne comes in racing, his notes splattering everywhere. Griffiths's tuba-like solo explores the lower depths.

The almost churchlike beginning to Something Like This gives the sensation of Miller's vibrating notes sounding like a huge insect buzzing in and out of the pews.

Moholo-Moholo rattles behind him and Tippett charges up the keys.

Griffiths enters growling and distressed, like a lost tailgate trombonist in an unknown Crescent City back alley, before Tippett strides out on a familiar riff and Charig enters on a higher plane, leading the ensemble.

Osborne's alto comes singing through the harmonies for an impassioned Ornette Coleman-like chorus, as the theme segues into a French version of Touch Hungry, with Charig testing his chops with an outstanding opening chorus.

The final track is the 17 minutes of Eli's Song, and Miller's bass is in the lead, superbly recorded, with all his confreres' solos stemming from his audacious, elemental bass at the centre of the sound.

And thanks be to the pioneering spirit too of Ogun Records which keeps him there as an examplar to anyone, anywhere who ever picks up their bass.