JAZZ

John Klemmer

ABC Records

It's 4 a.m. of a gray morning after the night before. The evening and the smoke and the friends have dissolved into dim corners, trickled down stairs and slid away over rain-slicked streets. You see the morning in as everything wears off. Time drags. Until you hear music that sounds the way a drifting parachute looks. And it's even better than those records of waves and bird cries at soothing frazzled, fidgety sleepless nerves. The notes echo, ripple, shimmer and flow. The party debris remains. But you're gone: finding out who's playing jazz on this rock'n'rollers floor.

The musician turns out to be John Klemmer, the album's called Barefoot Ballet and the devotee's cradling a bottle of lukewarm wine and curled up on a red plastic sit-sack. You've never seen any of them before but the music brightens the small hours.

Three o'clock the following afternoon brings the real test. Shut out the sound of your room-mate's typewriter and listen again. John Klemmer's jazz sounds even better the second time around. Like George Harrison's song, "Way back in time someone said try some, I tried some. Now buy some. I bought some..." And his 1975 album, Touch, is well on the way to gold status now so I can't be the only one.

But Touch was more than the fusing of various musical impulses into an easy-to-listen-to commercial package. Klemmer's exploration of what he calls "the sensual flow of sound" is original. He began as a rock jack-of-all-trades and moved gradually towards combining rock and jazz, convinced that "Jazz has to be re-established as a popular music... because of its emotional and intellectual depth." His sound is unique. It doesn't pretend to imitate the "greats." Instead it draws from sources from rock to classical, from jazz to pop, and the finished product is rich, carefully crafted yet lyrical. John Klemmer's technical skill--he plays the saxophone--is balanced by sensitive interpretation of pieces he's also composed. His melodies are subtle and haunting, rich in harmonies and polyrhythms.

Barefoot Ballet is his latest and most polished album. It's complex yet the intricacies of its composition are unobtrusive. He uses something called an Echoplex which does just that. However his music rises above mere electronic gimmickry. And the songs--instrumentals--are hard to choose between. My own favorites are the title track, "Whisper to the Wind," "Poem Painter" and "Talking Hands."

"Poem Painter" begins typically, with an echo and a shimmer of light musical phrases that remind you a bit of temple bells shivering in the wind. Then the percussion enters, muted yet enriching the sound, and finally the melody--simple and repetitive but constantly branching off in unexpected and spontaneous harmonies. You trace the saxophone's part much as you are drawn by a strand of gold in a piece of cloth. It glows and enriches the fabric and the fabric, (or musical backing) in turn, keeps the shimmer from ever becoming brassy.

Klemmer's saxophone, of course, dominates each song and his solos are superlative. But the effect of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and you're more conscious of an almost three-dimensional effect than of only the solos, only the melody. Barefoot Ballet envelops you and you stay wrapped up.

His message is simple to the point of naivete--listen, understand, relate--and yet you sense it's sincere. He writes: "Albums should have their own personality... you should come away from them with the satisfaction that you have experienced a work of art... This album is me, and I hope people enjoy it." And you will. Listen to him and peace will cover you slowly as a settling silk parachute.