Al Foster: Love, Peace and Jazz

Career overview part 3.

New to me are two Al Foster albums made for the Japanese market in the Seventies— Mixed Roots (1978¹), with Jeff Berlin, Bob Mintzer, Michael Brecker and Masabumi Kikuchi (in his Rhodes/synth era), and a follow up, Mr. Foster (1979), with Dave Liebman and Onaje Allen Gumbs.

Neither are streaming in their complete form, but a few stray tracks are on YouTube. On “Mixed Roots”, Foster, staying close to a Steve Gadd template², sets up a classic Michael Brecker solo, while on the more restrained “Mr. Foster”³, Al and Dave Liebman graft their thing onto some tasty pop-jazz.

Of course, Al sounds great here, as does everyone. But this just doesn’t seem like the best area for Foster to make his mark.

For one thing, Foster, usually identifiable by one note, is sort of anonymous on these cuts. (They would make great blindfold tests). Good as Al sounds, he’s doing exactly what’s expected, but without the flair, the sense of style and individuality so naturally there in his work with an acoustic small group. To pick a favorite example, take Al on Dexter Gordon’s “Apple Jump” from Biting The Apple (1976), where every detail of Foster’s is both just right and totally unique— cymbal beat, sound, and vocabulary. Al’s a man inspired, playing with heart and pizzazz that’s a bit absent from “Mixed Roots”.

For another, the whole atmosphere of these two Seventies tunes is low stakes and easygoing. This is not Al Foster. He is an intense, high-stakes, serious artist whose music is meant to be listened to closely. Back to Biting The Apple: listen to Al swing out with Barry Harris on “I’ll Remember April”— Foster hears every phrase of Harris’s, and varies his cymbal beat and snare accents accordingly, creating an undulating texture of tiny changes in volume, intensity, and accents. This is top-level jazz science. Few have mastered these details like Foster, and it’s that mastery that sets him apart.

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So, Al Foster let others make their mark with backbeats and studio drumming. After leaving Miles Davis in 1985, Foster became one of the world’s very greatest jazz drummers, on gigs, tours, and recordings with Freddie Hubbard, Tommy Flanagan, Steve Kuhn, Sonny Rollins, Bobby Hutcherson, and, of course, Joe Henderson.

In the Nineties, Foster started assembling working bands. (For a snapshot of this time, read bassist Doug Weiss’s memories and heartfelt tribute.) Now in his early fifties, Al had an unimpeachable reputation, and, among jazz people, was quite well-known. But anyone who commits to hard-core, small group acoustic jazz has their work cut out for them.

Compared to Billy Hart, whose bands of juxtaposed players and sounds crystallize his vision of a unified jazz tradition, Foster the bandleader was a bit more conventional— handpicked players for swinging quartets and quintets where he could do his thing. It worked— I went to many Al Foster Quartet gigs and they were always great, built on the deep understanding and musical closeness of Al Foster and Doug Weiss.

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Foster led bands from around 1993 at least until 2022, releasing four albums under his own name. The first three records make a nice trilogy, and all three feature Foster and Doug Weiss. Brandyn introduces Foster’s group and Al Foster, composer; Love Peace and Jazz is a snapshot of the quartet at the Vanguard; and Inspirations and Dedications is a culmination, the only Al Foster album where he’s the main composer.

Reflections, Foster’s last as a leader, is a sort of career retrospective, with the widest range of styles on a Foster album and returning early band members Kevin Hays and Chris Potter.

• Brandyn (Laika Records, 1997) with Chris Potter, Dave Kikoski, and Doug Weiss. Al’s tunes commemorate friends, family, and icons: “The Chief” (Miles Davis), “Brandyn” (Foster’s son), “Barney Rose” (later recorded as “Bonnie Rose”, Foster’s wife— I hope this title is not a record company mishearing/misunderstanding of the actual title), and “Monk Up And Down”, an evocative ballad. Fresh, inventive, and swinging, Brandyn is a peak example of a sound widely heard in NYC at the time. Lots of bands wanted to sound like this, but Al and Company got there. Foster deeply understands Potter and Kikoski, and the chemistry between Doug Weiss and Foster grabs the ear— check out Potter’s “Amsterdam Blues”. Foster was 54 when this record, his first as a bandleader, was released to evidently little fanfare. It should be better known— Al was onto something.

• Love, Peace and Jazz (Jazz Eyes, 2007). Ten years later, Doug Weiss is the only constant, joining newcomers saxophonist Eli Degibri and pianist Kevin Hays. The group plays right to Al, framing him and setting him up, and Al is particularly strong and inspired here: judging from his solos on “E.S.P.” and “Brandyn”, Foster seems more comfortable in the spotlight. Once again, it’s the deepening Weiss/Foster connection making it happen— both “E.S.P.” and “Brandyn” are great showcases for them, especially the tricky “Brandyn”, Weiss and Foster free and easy on a 45-bar AABAC form. Hays’s reading of “Blue In Green” is wonderful, while Degibri, always swinging for the fences, even finds a way to get hot on the set’s bossa nova, “Peter’s Mood”.

• Inspirations and Dedications (Smoke Sessions, 2019). Twelve years after Love Peace and Jazz, and once again, Doug Weiss the sole returning band member, Inspirations and Dedications is the only record of Foster’s dedicated exclusively to his compositions⁴. With a new all-star band— Jeremy Pelt on trumpet, saxophonist Dayna Stephens, and pianist Adam Birnbaum— Inspirations and Dedications features portraits of those closest to Al: his four daughters (“Simone’s Dance”, “Samba De Michelle”, “Kierra”, and “Song For Monique”); “Brandyn” (here a brief and strikingly beautiful rubato ballad with Birnbaum, Weiss, and Foster); “Bonnie Rose”, Al’s longtime partner; “Jazzon” for Foster’s grandson; “Douglas” for Doug Weiss (their medium 4/4 is so infectious and great), and “Aloysius” a drum solo and self-portrait. Pelt, Stephens, and Birnbaum are at ease and expansive, letting us savor Al and Weiss in their final studio recording. Good as everyone sounds on these three records, it’s the Al Foster/Doug Weiss connection that makes it all possible.

• Reflections (Smoke Sessions, 2022), Foster’s last session as a leader. Chris Potter and Kevin Hays are back, joining newcomers Nicholas Payton and bassist Vicente Archer (I saw a knockout set by this group at Smoke). Both Hays and Potter are featured in lovely trios— Potter, Archer, and Al swing out on “Blues On The Corner”, while Hays leads the rhythm section through a gorgeous version Herbie’s “Alone And I”. I love Archer and Foster’s loping two-feel on Al’s “T.S. Monk”, and the group gets off a magical version of Joe Henderson’s “Punjab”, with Foster’s cymbal shining through. There’s even a reference to Foster’s fusion years with Nicholas Payton’s “Six”, featuring Hays on Rhodes, the first time we’ve heard an electric instrument on a Foster record since Mr. Foster. Reflections sums up all that Al encountered as he came into his own as the creative force we know and love.

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At the end of his Vanguard album, Foster tells the audience “All we need is love, peace, and jazz. That’s all we need to get along.” This must have been Al’s dream, and he stayed true to that dream. He could have pursued a life outlined on Mixed Roots and Mr. Foster, or any one of a million other paths in music, but he made his choice and followed through. Listen and hear the depths of Foster’s commitment to his music.

Foster started out with Blue Mitchell, played backbeats with Miles Davis, then embraced cutting-edge modern jazz. This is where he made his enormous contribution, showing total individuality and freedom within the broader bebop tradition. This was his mission, successfully completed.

This is my third and final (for now) essay for Al Foster. Writing these small surveys (which, by the way, was so much fun— I have at least 15 new favorite albums), one thing comes shining through: Al Foster made “Al Foster” happen. It wasn’t destiny. He followed the music, come what may. Al Foster did what he cared about. This is what we’re all supposed to do.

Also on Al Foster:

• Al Foster: Serenity

• Al Foster: 1964-1974

• Al Foster: Miles Davis, Bebop, Beyond, and Joe Henderson

1. Both are on Columbia/Sony— Mixed Roots on Sony proper, Mr. Foster on a subsidiary called Better Days.

2. Foster called Gadd “a genius” in his 1989 MD interview; those who know, know.

3. “Mr. Foster” is a Miles Davis tune that Davis, with Foster, recorded in 1975 under the title “Minnie”, as in Minnie Ripperton! “Minnie” was only released in 2007 as part of The Complete On The Corner Sessions boxset.

4. Almost— the record opens with Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island” and closes with Miles Davis’s “Jean Pierre”. But Foster’s tunes— 9 out of 11 tracks— are clearly the focus of the session.