Texas trumpeter Marvin "Hannibal" Peterson, 67, gained a name for himself in the early 1970s by performing and recording as part of the Gil Evans Orchestra, and in the bands of Roy Haynes and Pharoah Sanders. By 1976, he was fronting his own combos with a curious mixture of tradition and totally avant-garde squeaks, freaks, blips, beeps, grunts, honks, squeals and any other possible sound he could think of. That year he performed at the Berlin Jazz Festival and went wild. The set was preserved for posterity and re-released in 2015 as Hannibal In Berlin by MPS Records out of Germany. The dude's a killer on this thrill ride of an album!
Besides having his 1990 African Portraits oratorio recorded by 55 orchestras, most notably the Chicago Symphony under the direction of Daniel Barenboim, Peterson can be heard on 37 albums (14 as leader) by a range of artists from Elvin Jones and Don Pullen to Billy Hart and Frank Foster.
On this night, he surrounded himself with empathetic sidemen whose sole purpose was to sandpaper his rough edges with professionalism, humor, grace, dynamics and harmonic sophistication. So when he rides the 'Trane on "My Favorite Things" from The Sound Of Music, he can fly into the stratosphere knowing that pianist Michael Cochrane, cellist Diedre Murray, bassist Steve Neil, tenor saxophonist George Adams (hot off the last great band of Charles Mingus) and drummer Allen Nelson will pretty up his bravery.
The result is a mixed bag of surprise, syncopation and perseverance. In fact, he wrote opener "The 23rd Psalm" in praise of perseverance. It's so out there, especially to start a set, that he immediately goes into the moldy chestnut "Willow Weep For Me" next, but in his hands, it's anything but moldy. John Coltrane, a particular muse, gets his tribute to Bessie Smith, "Bessie's Blues," interpreted with even more outer space static than the original. "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" is as earthly as he gets. It all amounts to a ride of roller coaster proportions. Kudos to MPS for rescuing this long out-of-print live gem from the dustbin of history.
