The 4 Horns and What? Anthology

Phil Haynes with his drum set (from his photograph on the Web page for the album being discussed)

4 Horns and What? is the name of a quintet created by drummer and composer Phil Haynes. As should be easily deduced, he is the only member of the quintet that is not playing a horn; but it is important to remember that, where jazz is concerned, “horn” refers to not only the brass family but also the winds (primarily, but not necessarily entirely, saxophones). This Friday will see the collective release of three albums produced by Corner Store Jazz: 4 Horns & What (1989), 4 Horn Lore (1991), and Live at B.A.M. (1995). A Bandcamp Web page has been created, which will allow the curious listener to sample eleven of the overall 27 tracks; and, as of this writing, the entire album will be available only for digital download.

As might be guessed, personnel varies from one album to the next. Clearly, Haynes is the drummer on all four albums. The two horn players that also appear on all albums are lead trumpeter Paul Smoker and Andy Laster, who plays a variety of reed instruments, as well as flute. The tracks for the first two albums were recorded at Sorcerer Sound in New York. For those unfamiliar with the title of the last album, it refers to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where a “live” performance was captured on October 15, 1995. This included three tracks of introductory remarks by Haynes, as well as an initial introduction to the entire evening by Don Byron. Sadly, the capture technique for all of that verbiage left much to be desired; but the music itself, much of which accounts for “live” approaches to tracks from the first two albums, is as clear as anyone would wish.

Over the course of those 27 tracks, the attentive listener will encounter a wide variety of dispositions. Raucousness tends to be the primary rhetorical technique for seizing and sustaining attention. Nevertheless, there are also episodes of quietude, which are more concerned with exploring specific sonorities and, more often than not, playing with different techniques for combining them. What particularly interests me is how effectively Haynes uses his drum kit to establish an alternative for what one might expect from a bass line.

In the early eighties, when I was working in Ridgefield, Connecticut, I made frequent trips into New York to attend B.A.M. performances, particularly those associated with their Next Wave festivals. This led to any number of engaging “first contact” experiences, including one (involving George Coates and Paul Dresher), which would resurface after I moved to the Bay Area. It has been a long time since I set foot in B.A.M., but I was glad to see that it continued to be a venue for adventurous undertakings. Those whose adventurous spirits led to jazz would do well to check out what Haynes brought to that venue (if they have not already done so), although, where this anthology is concerned, my own preferences run to the studio albums!