New joy from an old jazz release: Arthur Blythe's "Lennox Avenue Breakdown" (1979

 Lenox Avenue Breakdown -Arthur Blythe (Columbia) 

Arthur Blythe, whose alto saxophone has cut through the New York jazz scene with both clarity and conviction, is a musician of rare vision—someone who, having honed his craft with the likes of Chico Hamilton, now stands among the most compelling forces on his instrument. Where others are content to settle within the boundaries of a single idiom, Blythe gleefully subverts expectations, refusing to be hemmed in by genre. His playing on "Lenox Avenue Breakdown" is eclectic without being diffuse, drawing on hard bop’s muscularity, the searching spirit of the avant-garde, and the agile inventiveness of post-bop—yet always rendered in that unmistakable, burnished tone that is wholly his own.

There’s a robustness and melodic inventiveness to Blythe’s lines that calls to mind the lyricism of Joe Farrell or Phil Woods, but he is equally at home with a technical bravura reminiscent of Sonny Rollins. Blythe reaches for the farthest corners of the instrument: he employs multiphonics and overblowing not as mere embellishments, but as integral tools for coaxing out gritty, timbrally complex sonorities reminiscent of the early experiments of Pharoah Sanders or Gato Barbieri. His phrasing can turn on a dime—from the buoyant, dancing lines of a Charles McPherson to sudden angular leaps and unexpected rhythmic pirouettes. Blythe is no imitator; he is an assembler of influences, forging a style where everything is filtered through his idiosyncratic imagination—a style marked by sharp melodic invention, surprising intervals, and an elastic sense of time.

The ensemble that joins him here is nothing short of remarkable: Jack DeJohnette’s drumming, Cecil McBee’s bass, James "Blood" Ulmer’s taut guitar, and a coterie of equally adventurous colleagues. Together, they construct a rhythmic architecture that is as supple as it is forceful, alternately locking into tight, syncopated grooves and exploding them into polyrhythmic freedom. The rhythm section does not simply accompany; it prods, colors, and challenges—shifting modes, slipping in chromatic asides, building up layers of texture that serve as a launchpad for Blythe’s exploratory journeys.Nowhere is this more apparent than on the title track, which unfolds as a shape-shifting, restlessly evolving soundscape. The pulse mutates, cross-rhythms collide and resolve, and the ensemble’s timbrel palette expands and contracts with painterly precision. Blythe rides above and within this maelstrom—darting with dazzling runs, scaling the saxophone’s upper reaches, and developing motifs with a dramatist’s sense of tension and release. The structure is loose enough to invite collective improvisation, so that every soloist is woven into the conversation, each voice adding to the album’s layered rhythmic and tonal density. "Lenox Avenue Breakdown" is, in the best sense, a jazz record that refuses the comfortable formulas so often mistaken for innovation. It teems with risk, vitality, and raw energy—a bracing affirmation of jazz’s capacity for surprise and renewal. For those who hunger for music that is both grounded in tradition and wild with invention, Blythe’s album is indispensable.