Alex Henderson

Norman Connors

Dance of Magic/Dark of Light

Mention the name Norman Connors to fans of classic 1970s soul, and they immediately think of R&B hits such as “You Are My Starship,” “Valentine Love” and “We Both Need Each Other.” They think of Connors putting R&B singers like Michael Henderson and the late Phyllis Hyman on the map, and they think of the Philadelphia native as an R&B-oriented drummer/arranger who made soul, funk, disco and quiet storm recordings and perhaps recorded a jazz instrumental here and there if he felt like it. But early in his career, Connors was not an R&B-oriented artist who offered a little jazz on the side. He was a hardcore jazz drummer and an instrumentalist who came from the city that gave us Philly Joe Jones, Mickey Roker, Bobby Durham and other first-class jazz drummers.

Born in Philly on March 1, 1947, Connors was only 20 when he backed tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp on his 1967 session The Magic of Ju-Ju—and the early 1970s found him appearing as a sideman on albums by two other well-known tenor sax heavyweights: Pharoah Sanders (who gave Connors some valuable exposure both on stage and in the studio) and Sam Rivers. It was also in the early 1970s that Sanders began recording as a leader: his first album, Dance of Magic, was recorded for Cobblestone Records in 1972 and was followed by his second album, Dark of Light, in 1973. This reissue boasts both of those instrumental classics back-to- back on a single CD.

Instrumental jazz was offered as a side dish on the R&B-dominated albums that Connors recorded in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but Dance of Magic and Dark of Light are hardcore jazz albums through and through. Dance of Magic employs a who’s-who on early 1970s jazz, including Eddie Henderson on trumpet, Gary Bartz on alto and soprano saxophone, Carlos Garnett on tenor and soprano saxophone, Herbie Hancock on acoustic piano and electric keyboards, Stanley Clarke or Cecil McBee on bass and Airto Moreira or Alphonse Mouzon on percussion. With that impressive lineup on board, Connors performs four instrumentals that are right out of the John Coltrane/Pharoah Sanders/Rahsaan Roland Kirk school of spiritual post-bop: the 21-minute title track (a Connors original that took up all of Side 1 on the original 1972 LP), McBee’s ethereal “Morning Change,” Clarke’s hypnotic “Blue” and Connors’ percussive “Give the Drummer Some” (which places the leader’s drums right up front and contains elements of African and Latin drumming).

Connors was open to playing a variety of jazz in the early 1970s—not only post-bop, but also, fusion, jazz-funk and even free jazz. Despite the inclusion of some electric instruments, Dance of Magic is primarily a post-bop album. But on the title track, Connors favors an inside/outside approach (not unlike Sanders in the early 1970s) and offers some passionate acknowledgement of jazz’ avant-garde. The title track’s melody is clearly post-bop, yet the solos are quite free and detour into avant-garde territory.

On Dark of Light, Connors delves a bit deeper into the avant-garde with the brief “Twilight Zone” and the 11-minute “Black Lightnin’” (both Connors originals). The gloves really come off on “Black Lightnin’,” which finds Connors and his sidemen getting into some intense, fiery, chaotic free jazz dissonance. But Dark of Light, like Dance of Magic, is primarily a post-bop album—and a much more melodic outlook prevails on two pieces by Clarke (“Laughter” and the reflective “Butterfly Dreams”), Connors’ probing “Song for Rosa” and pianist Onaje Allan Gumbs’ haunting title track.

Many of the musicians who appear on Dance of Magic also appear on Dark of Light, including Henderson, Clarke, Hancock, Bartz, Garnett and McBee. Some vocalists are employed on Dark of Light as well (including Dee Dee Bridgewater) and contribute wordless scat vocals at times, although the album is predominantly instrumental.

1973 was a busy year for Clarke. That year, he was a member of the original lineup of pianist/keyboardist Chick Corea’s iconic Return to Forever, which also included Brazilian singer Flora Purim, Moreira (Purim’s husband) and the late tenor/soprano saxophonist Joe Farrell. Clarke performed on two different versions of “Butterfly Dreams” in 1973: the version heard on Dark of Light, and a version on a Purim album that was produced by Orrin Keepnews for Milestone Records and was also titled Butterfly Dreams.

Connors was so involved in hardcore jazz in the early 1970s that it was hard to imagine he would be a major R&B star several years later. One of the people who had the pleasure of seeing him live during that period was Jerry Gordon, a veteran of the Philadelphia jazz scene whose accomplishments include co-founding the Philly-based label Evidence Music in the early 1990s and operating Third Street Jazz & Rock (an independent record store in the city’s Olde City section) from 1972-1987. Gordon remembers seeing a young Connors playing as a sideman for Pharoah Sanders at the Aqua Lounge, a West Philly club that attracted its share of Philly jazz royalty (from pianist McCoy Tyner to tenor saxophonist Bootsie Barnes) before closing in the mid-1970s.

“The first time I saw Norman Connors was on stage at the Aqua Lounge at 52nd and Chancellor Street in Philadelphia, around 1970,” Gordon recalled in an August 2013 interview. “Pharoah had dropped to his knees, rolled his eyes into the back of his head, and blew to the sky while this youthful, handsome, bare-chested drummer wildly propelled the music into an ecstatic explosion. It appeared to be jazz’s future juxtaposed with its present.”

However, the success of the Stevie Wonder-influenced “Valentine Love” in 1975 marked the beginning of Connors’ transition from hardcore jazz drummer to R&B star, and Connors became even more popular among R&B audiences when the ballad “You Are My Starship” reached #4 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart the following year. But in 1972 and 1973, Connors was still hell-bent for jazz—and both Dance of Magic and Dark of Light remain compelling documents of that period of his career.

—Alex Henderson, August 2013

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, JazzTimes, Jazziz, AlterNet, Salon.com, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, Latin Style, The New York City Jazz Record and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) has also contributed several thousand CD reviews to The All Music Guide’s popular website and series of music reference books.