While searching for the tapes for unjustly obscure pianist Hassan Ibn Ali’s Retrospect In Retirement Of Delay: The Solo Recordings, producer Alan Sukeonig and saxophonist D.B. Shrier came across another gem thought long lost: the original recordings for Shrier’s lone LP. Originally released in 1967, D.B. Shrier Emerges chronicles a burst of jazz with feeling that, oddly, became the musician’s only recorded statement – despite a long career of activity on the Philadelphia jazz scene.
The late saxist possessed a distinctive attack, rooted in the bebop of Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins but shaped by the postbop of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman – aggressive, ready to jump outside when required, but rooted in a tune’s changes. Supported by a crack band, including pianist Mike Michaels (who would later become the music director of The Mike Douglas Show), bassist Tyrone Brown (who would go on to spend a couple of decades with Max Roach), and drummer William Roye (who later joined bassist Jymie Merrit’s Forerunner), Shrier lets loose on a series of live and studio recordings. Impressive takes on Gigi Gryce’s “Blue Lights,”, the standard “These Foolish Things,” and Miles Davis’ “All Blues” meld with a pair of originals: Michaels’ “Raveesh,” an Indian-influenced free jazz opus, and Brown’s “East,” a mysterious, brooding ballad. It’s an impressive debut, making it doubly weird that Shrier was the only one who didn’t go on to a longer career.
Fortunately those five tracks aren’t the end of the music, as Sukeonig also found five more songs with Shrier in the lead. The quartet blazes through Charlie Parker’s “Steeplechase,” one of those tunes every saxophonist was obligated to tackle back then, with style and energy, and comes out swinging for the Jesse Gree and Raymond Klages standard “Just You Just Me.” A trio take on the James Hanley and Ballard MacDonald tune “Indiana,” recorded with bassist Bob Pitcoff and drum phenom Allan Elgart, also shines. But once again the highlights are the originals, including the leader’s roiling “Helene” and Brown’s magnificent “Opus #3.”
Recorded in and still preserved in mono, Emerges showcases an exceptionally talented jazz musician who had a bright future that, for some inexplicable reason, never came to be. At least we have the album to preserve Shrier’s memory and what little music he recorded.
