MIKE OSBORNE — Border Crossing (review)

MIKE OSBORNE — Border Crossing album cover Live album · 1974 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
Second Osborne album (and certainly an easier one than the previous Shapes) on the Ogun label, in which he was a partaker, with the returning South Africans Harry Miller (cb) and Louis Moholo (drums). Yup, we’re down to the basic sax-led trio, but Osborne chose to play it more or less melodically (everything staying relative with Osborne) throughout the duration of the album. So we’re left with some kind of hard-boppy meets post-bop album that might have seemed a bit rear-guard as the mid-70’s were approaching fast.

On the more adventurous side of the album, we’ve got the Awakening Spirit, where Miller bows his CB over gentle sax wails, before the trio gets carried away in a first burst of energy, then cooling back down to the bowed-bass. The following 10-mins 1st is first opening as a moody ballad, before veering some kind of raga-bop. Opening the flipside Animation is a hard-bop piece that overstays its welcome by half its length, even if Osborne pulls some of his better chops. The short 100 MPH Riff piece could almost qualify as improvised hardcore-bop, and is easily the least accessible track of the album, while the closing 8-mins title track opens of sultry slow sax and bowed-bass, but turns again hard-boppy.

Still a bit surprisingly, like much of its catalogue, the Ogun label reissued this album as a CD, coupled with 77’s Marcel’s Muse as a 2on1 mini-Lp format, and the package is well worth investigated (and invested in) by all fans of the Swinging London-jazz scene. One of Osborne’s most accessible 70’s album, along with the SOS release of the ext year with Skidmore and Surman, but still to be approached with caution for those allergic with the slightest hint of dissonance.
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