Imagine what
Sonny Stitt might have sounded like had he embraced free jazz after mastering bebop, and one can probably conjure a pretty good mental impression of
Jimmy Lyons. Like
Stitt,
Lyons was enamoured of
Charlie Parker's style, particularly in terms of phrasing.
Lyons' slippery, bop-derived rhythms and melodic contours lent his improvisations a
Charlie "Bird" Parker-like cast, even as his performance contexts were more harmonically free.
Lyons made his reputation playing with pianist
Cecil Taylor, with whom he became inextricably linked. He was a near-constant presence in
Taylor's bands from 1960 until the saxophonist's death in 1986.
Lyons always lent an explicitly swinging element to the pianist's music, helping remind the listener most emphatically that -- regardless of how much
Taylor may have been influenced by European art music -- this was unquestionably jazz.
A teenaged
Lyons was given an alto sax by the clarinetist
Buster Bailey, an important member of
Fletcher Henderson's band in the '20s and '30s.
Lyons studied with veteran big band saxophonist
Rudy Rutherford, and at a young age made friends with such jazz luminaries as
Elmo Hope,
Bud Powell, and
Thelonious Monk.
Lyons came into his own as a professional upon his association with
Taylor in 1960. With
Taylor,
Lyons recorded a number of landmark albums, including Cecil Taylor Live at Café Montmartre (1962), in a trio with drummer
Sunny Murray; and
Unit Structures (1966), in a larger band who included, significantly, drummer
Andrew Cyrille.
Lyons took his own bands into the studio infrequently. In 1969, he led his first session, an album entitled Other Afternoons, which was issued on the now-defunct BYG label. Beginning in 1978, he began leading record dates more often. In the years to come he would release several albums on the Hat Hut and Black Saint labels.
Like many jazz musicians,
Lyons was compelled by circumstance to augment his performance income by teaching. In 1970-1971 he taught music at Narcotic Addiction Control, a drug treatment center in New York City. From 1971-1973 he served -- with
Taylor and
Cyrille -- as the artist in residence at Antioch College, and in 1975 he directed the Black Music Ensemble at Bennington College. Perhaps
Lyons' stature as a musician is best illustrated by the fact that
Taylor essentially found him irreplaceable. After
Lyons,
Taylor never established a similar long-standing relationship with another musician.
Jimmy Lyons' premature death at the age of 52 robbed
Taylor -- and avant-garde jazz in general -- of a vital, swinging, eminently creative voice. ~ Chris Kelsey