Going His Own Way: Don Byron

Don Byron is one of the most innovative and independent musicians on the jazz scene today. I hesitate to even call him a jazz musician because Byron really defies categorization, which is, I’m sure, how he likes it. Is Byron a jazz musican? Yes, sort of. A world music musician; yes, a little of that. A classical music performer; that too. Byron is all of that. A superb clarinetist and bass clarinetist (and a tenor sax player as well, although more on that later), Byron loves nothing more than to pose musical challenges, then going about solving them in his own way.

Scanning my CD racks, it occurred to me that I had a fair number of Byron albums, picked up here and there along the way. I decided to listen to them all this week in a concerted fashion. I came away admiring, if not always loving what I heard. They were: Tuskegee Experiments; Romance With The Unseen; Music for Six Musicians; You Are #6; A Fine Line (Arias and Lieders); Ivey-Divey; and, Do The Boomerang: The Music of Junior Walker.

I can truly say that they are all different from each other (very different in most cases). What they have in common is Byron’s quirky intelligence, love of concept, and superb musicianship. One might say this is contemporary Third Stream music, capturing elements of through-composed classical music and creative improvised music. It’s evident that Byron has a formidable classical training. Yet it is just as clear that Byron is well-versed in the roots of jazz. Byron can move from lieder to Latin without skipping a beat.

It’s beyond my time and space to give you detailed information on individual tracks. In that, I’m following Byron himself, whose liner note information rarely offers any commentary on the music contained on each disc; the point is to listen on your own and make your own decisions. For my part, I actually like them all, although I think some are more successful than others: Tuskegee Experiments; Ivey-Divey; Romance With The Unseen. I might even add A Fine Line to the list, for its audacious bringing together “arias and lieders” by Ornete Coleman, Giacomo Puccine, Chopin, Sondheim, and other equally unlikely selections. The only album in the group that I am somewhat disappointed in is, paradoxiically, the easiest to get in to: Do the Boomerang, which is a fairly straightfoward homage to Junior Walker, played as straight up as I imagine Byron is capable of, and this is what is disappointing. As much fun as it is, it strikes me as a retrograde step for Byron, who, by the way, plays tenor sax on the majority of cuts. I prefer him on clarinet, which better expresses his musical thinking; on tenor, he’s just another player.

It’s also clear that Byron’s music appeals more to the intellect than the gut. It’s like listening to an extremely intelligent person working out a thorny issue. This sounds oft-putting, but Byron is one of the few on the scene today who can be said to capture the “sound of surprise.” That is no small achievement. By all means, if you have not already, give him listen (and I urge that you give his albums repeat listenings; one audition is not sufficient). Perhaps you will have your own romance with the unseen.