Solid as a Rock

Billy Hart doesn’t see jazz as being split between avant-garde and straight-ahead; for him, the big distinction is between acoustic and electric. And given the drummer’s endless list of associations during a career that stretches back to the 1960s, his view should be afforded a bit more than passing credence.

The National Endowment for the Arts is set to honor Hart, as well as saxophonist Donald Harrison— the drummer’s bandmate in the Cookers—this year. It’s an accolade that surprises Hart, but one that he also might have been able to forecast, considering his contributions to ensembles led by Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Joanne Brackeen, and Lee Konitz, among others.

In addition to being a founding member of the Cookers, Hart has sporadically led his own groups—which recently have yielded a handful of finely wrought long-players on the ECM label. The Cookers, though, are in the spotlight this year, marking their 10th anniversary with the release of Look Out! (Gearbox). The band has positioned itself as something of a supergroup, featuring musicians who’ve performed in ensembles alongside the genre’s most acute innovators (see sidebar).

Reedist Dave Liebman is one of those stalwarts who in the past has done time with Hart on the bandstand;