The Booker T Cookbook Saxophonist who plays with backing tracks,…..smooth jazz, etc.

All of this is an admittedly roundabout way of confessing that I wasn't prepared to be as delighted as I am with Go Tell It on the Mountain (Silkheart), an album of traditional hymns and originals with heaven-gazing titles by Booker T. Williams Jr., a New York-based tenor saxophonist originally from Seattle who performs as Booker T. The obsessive soul-searching implicit in the programming suggests an affinity with John Coltrane. But unlike too many of the saxophonists who aim for Coltrane's spiritual elevation, Booker T has a devilish sense of humor best illustrated by his "Say amen, Gracie" drollery on "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," a homey little melody he elongates and fragments with the comic élan of a Sonny Rollins.
In fact, the classic album that Go Tell It on the Mountain most recalls is Way Out West, Rollins's 1958 album of cowboy tunes--and not just because Booker T, like Rollins before him, finds inspiration in unlikely places. It's also because Booker T's interaction with the bassist Saheb Sarbib and the drummer Andrew Cyrille is as carefree and almost as electrifying as Rollins's with Ray Brown and Shelly Manne thirty years ago (or better yet, with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones on A Night at the Village Vanguard, from around the same time).

Despite the sarcasm implicit in Booker T's low-register bleats, his performances of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" and "Jesus Loves Me" exude sincerity, much the way Rollins's interpretations of oddball pop tunes do. For Booker T, as for Rollins, satire is a sign of respect, not condescension.
Booker T is ecumenical: one of the album's most infectious cuts is "Halle Kalle Mazeltov," a hora whose modality he cagily exploits. The Spartan trio format means that Sarbib and Cyrille have to function as soloists as well as rhythm stalwarts, and both men shoulder the added burden gracefully, maintaining melodic continuity in a manner that bassists and drummers seldom do when they solo.
Despite the length of some of the tracks (the title tune, which is just over sixteen minutes, is a Booker T original, not the folk song of the same name), Booker T's solos never deteriorate into self-indulgent braying. His sense of thematic exposition is too well developed for that-another cue he takes from Rollins. (And as if to underscore his lineage, the CD-only bonus track is Rollins's calypso "St. Thomas.") He switches to alto on his own "When Mama Cries I Cry," and his phrasing is impressively speechlike on this lighter horn.
To the best of my knowledge, Booker T's only other recording has been as a sideman on Cold Sweat, a recent album of James Brown tunes (also featuring Craig Harris and David Murray) that illustrates the sloppiness jazz musicians are capable of when trying to show they can be Regular Guys. But Go Tell It on the Mountain is stunning enough to make me a believer in Booker T's potential.

remember thinking how wonderful it must be to be so expressive - not merely to string sounds
popular, folk, classical, and most notably gospel.
together and then lend them to the evanescence
I can still hear his haunting and beautiful Go fell
It on the Mountain.
of the top forty, but to make music - art, born of talent and determination and fuelled by a com-
Ot all the years that I have known Booker I.,
pulsion to share it. Booker T. is blessed with that
he has never waivered on three points - his commitment to the family, his need to play and com-
guft.
pose music, and his belief in God. These three
At first, I thought that Booker 1. might be just ideas somehow come together and nourish each another jazz musician skilled with his instru- other. This album is dedicated to his tather, a ment and versed in the accomplishments ot brother, and his grandmother, all now deceased. say . . • John Coltrane. So, in July of nineteen-
And when asked of his inspiration for most of
seventy-five, my acceptance of an invitation to the material on this album, he replied: "This hear him play was half-hearted at best. Was I ever music has been in me for years; it's through the in for a surprise! It wasn't just his ease with com- grace of God that _ can now put it on this plex material. Nor was it his effortless coaxing of album". In fact, he says that he is drawn even spirited notes from that tenor saxophone. It was more closely to his mother after the tragedies of the exhilaration that you experienced. At once the past couple of years and has even composed frenzied and riveting, you went away thinking music born of this resurgence. that this music needs to be heard. Indeed, you
If it is true that genuine interest in a particular
felt privileged that you had heard it.
subject generates boundless energy, then Booker
Thereafter, I made it a point to hear Booker. 1.
1.'s music is without limits. He would say that
play whenever I could. I quickly learned that the his religion is the fulcrum and the music is label "jazz" was too narrow for his music. There merely a satellite, an orbit to accentuate the main was always an infusion of other types of music- force.
this: on one visit to New York, as friends are inclined to do, I called Booker 1. to meet for lunch and to catch up with what had been going on in our lives. We went to a restaurant just off Sixth Avenue and wound up talking from 2:30 pm
until 8:00 pm. All those hours we talked about the saxophone, about music, and how this must-cian from Seattle was faring in the Apple.
Another time, he called me at 2:00 am insisting that I listen to a new musical idea he had forged for himself. Next morning the telephone receiver was on the floor; I had tallen asleep. Embarras-sed, I mustered what I hoped was a believable apology. I don't think it mattered however. He'd played that night because he couldn't contain the energy, moved to share this wonderful gift of
music.
His music, this gift, will inspire you. It's at once bold and incisive, spirited and alarming.
Booker 1. is daring enough to bring together in his own compositions things that are usually kept separate - jazz and religious music. It makes for a spritely, fun sound. The listener will be moved by the intensity, range and absolute beauty of the entire delivery. But caution: do not trust the titles, expect a surprise..
As music brings the warmth and light of beauty into our lives, this recording will warm our hearts and spirits. Through this light, perhaps we will see a little more of ourselves.
Possibly, we will come to understand a bit more of each other. Either way, it is a wonderful gift.
Booker 1. is a colossal talent!
Gregg Gordon