Giuseppi Logan Quartet is really one of those records that's more fascinating than truly good. It's out there, and for a 1964 recording, it was right on the bleeding edge of the avant garde of that time. The opening "Tabla Suite" anticipated the Indian influence that would become integrated into Western music a few years later; the use of a tabla here is one of the earliest in jazz. Logan's Pakistani oboe further helps to make the piece exotic.

Elsewhere, Logan sticks mainly with his alto and tenor saxes with varying results. More often than not, his band is outplaying him. Don Pullen, who would later become one of the best inside-outside piano players in jazz, does a decent Cecil Taylor impersonation when called upon in what is probably his recording debut. An early version Eddie Gomez is heard here, too, in much more unrestrained form than he was later heard in as Bill Evans' longtime bassist. It's Milford Graves, however, who puts in the best performance overall. Besides contributing that tabla, Graves rummages around his kit with controlled abandon, always propelling the other players. He proceeds to all but kill that kit on "Taneous."

Logan didn't record much at all after this challenging debut; a couple more ESP-Disk releases quickly recorded after this, a handful of sideman dates, and after 1966, nothing. By the early seventies he disappeared from public view altogether and is believed to have passed away in the early nineties. But no one seems to know for sure.

Milford Graves Percussion Ensemble
The same Milford Graves who starred on Giuseppi Logan's Quartet album was the most recorded musician in ESP-Disk's heyday, so perhaps it was inevitable that Stollman would ask Graves to record as a leader. Graves obliged, and brought along fellow percussionist Sunny Morgan for the recordings that become Milford Graves Percussion Ensemble.

An album completely lacking in tonal instruments would be difficult for most anyone to sit through, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Unlike the Logan record, though, the leader displays a lot of skill, here, as does his cohort Morgan. You can find African as well as South American influences in their rhythms and for students of drums and percussion, it might function well as a mini-clinic.

Everyone else will find little reason to listen to Percussion Ensemble more than once. As proficient as these demonstrations of drums, bells, gongs and shakers are, they're still just demonstrations. There's no other purpose listeners are going to be able to get out of this. It's a somewhat interesting artifact that should lead you to seek Graves' other recordings.