Another one gone way too soon.
I first figured out I should be paying attention to Roy Campbell when I listened to Matthew Shipp’s (highly recommended) Pastoral Composure (2000). I had already gotten hip to Shipp, knowing immediately he was one of a growing list of musicians whose every offering I would need to acquire. Not coincidentally, it was musicians with whom he frequently collaborated that fell into the same rarefied air: William Parker, Hamid Drake, Susie Ibarra, David S. Ware…
Campbell’s playing on Pastoral Composure borders on tour de force (Shipp was just getting started: this release signaled a decade that he owned, for my money, more than any other player on the scene): it is urgent, heavy and occasionally dark, in all the right ways. There is a somber energy pulling this album in ostensibly opposite directions: implosion and release, and Campbell is the engine (Shipp, as always, is the quarterback, if I may mix my metaphors).
I wisely became more familiar with Campbell and came to understand he’d been around for a while, so I picked up albums here and there (I can strongly encourage anyone to Ethnic Stew and Brew, which features the aforementioned Drake and Parker). You hear all sorts of influences, and styles –and cultures– in his playing: by embracing myriad sources of inspiration he developed a unique, all-encompassing style. That is exceedingly difficult to accomplish, and will likely be his legacy for future listeners. I find myself wishing he had been recorded more (live as well as in the studio).
Now he’s gone. We’re lucky to have had him while we did.
