Noah Howard - Patterns LP

I was first exposed to Noah Howard’s playing with Bo’Weevil’s killer reissue of the Black Ark a few years ago, and now Aguirre’s reissue of his 1973 follow-up, Patterns, only cements him in my mind as a criminally overlooked free/spiritual alto player.

Taped in the Netherlands as Howard was searching for a new musical language (great liner notes on this included), there are so many hallmarks of this era of avant-garde jazz that we know and love: extended technique playing, skronk, sheets of noise guitar, a yodel passage, and generous helpings of auxiliary percussion. Yet, it’s played with an intensity and listenability that seems rare for this era.

The kind of album that I’d place alongside Sonny Sharrock’s Black Woman, the first two Joe McPhee band leader albums, or some of the Art Ensemble of Chicago material—that is, free without losing sight of melody and spiritual without sounding like it could fit onto an AI generated Sunday morning jazz playlist.
-Mitch