APPRECIATION : Don Pullen, Jazz Visionary, Creative to the Very End

It was typical of Don Pullen that when he died on April 22 of lymphoma, he was eagerly looking ahead to other projects. The 53-year-old pianist, one of the finest--and, sadly, one of the most under-recognized--jazz men to emerge in the ‘60s from the caldron of New York’s avant-garde, spent the last two years determinedly making music while battling the cancer that eventually took his life.

Neither the physical nor the psychological impact of the illness could deter him from an extraordinarily productive schedule of creative activities. A week before he passed away in East Orange, N.J., Pullen was still thinking about doing a trio album playing organ, an instrument that had fascinated him since he used it in soul-jazz gigs in Harlem in the late ‘60s.

“I told him,” said Blue Note Records President Bruce Lundvall, who signed Pullen to a contract with the label, “to just let me know when he wanted to go into the studio and we’d have it ready for him.”

As it turned out, that final session eluded Pullen. But there is little doubt that, had it taken place, the music would have been filled with the life-affirming sounds that were intrinsic to his art. His earliest work, with players such as Milford Graves, Giuseppi Logan and Albert Ayler, bristled with stormy, percussive chording and tradition-busting free improvisations. Like Cecil Taylor and 20th-Century composers Henry Cowell and John Cage, he approached the piano from an unconventional point of view, pounding on keys with forearms, plucking strings, using every possible sound-producing part of the instrument. Yet it was obvious, even at the time, that Pullen was no finger-throwing, unskilled radical. His most expressionistic playing, however explosive, was always informed by imagination, technique and musical intelligence.

Pullen’s broader versatility became evident in the early ‘70s, when he performed with Charles Mingus’ last great small band (with George Adams and Dannie Richmond), then moved on to memorable associations with Beaver Harris’ 360 Degree Experience, the Mingus Dynasty Band and a 10-year connection with Richmond, Adams and bassist Cameron Brown in the Pullen-Adams quartet.

The closing phase of Pullen’s career may have been the most remarkable of all. In 1990, he fulfilled a long-cherished dream and expanded his musical vision even more by forming the African Brazilian Connection--a group that included Senegalese percussionist Mor Thian, Brazilian drummer Guilherme Franco and bassist Nilson Matta, and Panamanian-born saxophonist Carlos Ward. The ensemble’s work, preserved in three recordings (“Kele Mou Bana,” “Ode to Life” and “Live . . . Again”) has been a brilliant confirmation of Pullen’s belief in the capacity of jazz to reach out and encompass music from all parts of the world.

Pullen completed his final recording, “Sacred Common Ground,” last month. Scheduled for release in 1996, the work is a collaboration linking the African Brazilian Connection, the Garth Fagan Dance company and the Chief Cliff Singers, a group of seven drummer-singers from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Native American reservations in Elmo, Mont. A year and a half in the making, it is a pioneering exploration of unexpected bonds between jazz and Native American music.

Pullen is survived by his companion, Jana Haimsohn, and four children. Contributions in his memory can be made to the Don Pullen Children’s Educational Fund, 530 Canal St., N.Y. 10013. Proceeds will be used toward his children’s educations.