Berkeley’s Wide Hive Records Still Buzzes With Soul After Nearly 25 Years

From the outside, the Wide Hive studio looks less than promising, with its battered, nondescript glass door set in an anonymous South Berkeley storefront just off Telegraph Avenue. But to step into the tightly packed space is to enter a sanctuary where some of the world’s greatest jazz musicians have made prized recordings.

Sectioned off into three small rooms packed with microphones, keyboards and recording gear, the studio is the primary facility Gregory Howe uses to record sessions for Wide Hive Records. Over the past two decades, it’s served as headquarters for the boutique label documenting revered masters such as the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s Roscoe Mitchell, Los Angeles trombonist Phil Ranelin, Oakland guitar great Calvin Keys, and Larry Coryell, the pioneering fusion guitarist who spans just about every jazz idiom of the past half-century.

Punching way above its weight class, Howe’s Wide Hive hasn’t scored a hit (though its four-volume Throttle Elevator Music series found a wide audience by capturing L.A. tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington in a variety of settings just as his career accelerated). Since founding the label in 1997, Howe’s thoughtfully showcased musicians he likes to describe as “soul warriors.”

“We’re not just paid in money,” he said. “We’re paid in soul, and for me it’s been like trying to collect parts of that soul with these masters like Roscoe, Phil, Calvin, and Henry Franklin.”

Franklin, known to friends and colleagues as “The Skipper,” handles bass on the latest Wide Hive gem, Kosen Rufu, a session led by New York drummer Mike Clark, who attained near-legendary status in funk (and later, hip-hop) circles for his work with Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters on 1974’s Thrust and 1975’s Man-Child. In a sign of both Wide Hive’s increasing visibility but below-the-radar status, Clark celebrates the album’s release with four shows at SFJAZZ, in the center’s small side room, the Joe Henderson Lab, on Sept. 14 and 15.

What’s frustrating is Clark’s prodigious lineup more than merits prime billing in the SFJAZZ Center’s main Miner Auditorium. Except for percussionist Bill Summers, with whom Clark recently recorded a new Headhunters LP The Stunt Man at Hyde Street Studios, the SFJAZZ gig features the same all-star cast as the Kosen Rufu album, including trumpet great Eddie Henderson.

Henderson and Clark have played together for over 50 years. In the late 1960s, the Sacramento-reared Clark was a scuffling Bay Area drummer who could usually be found playing jazz and R&B with his best friend, the late bassist Paul Jackson Jr. Henderson had just moved back to the Bay Area after graduating from Howard University to start a psychiatry residency at UCSF’s Langley-Porter Institute.

“The first time we played together was at The Both/And on Divisadero around 1969,” Clark recalled. “Ever since then, I’ve called him for gigs and record dates and he’s called me. We’ve got a long history.”

Clark started playing regularly with Franklin in the mid-1990s, when the Riverside-based bassist was already decades into an illustrious career of touring and recording with the likes of Freddie Hubbard, Hampton Hawes, Stevie Wonder and Hugh Masekela. (That was Franklin providing the bounce on the South African trumpet star’s chart-topping 1968 hit “Grazing In the Grass.”)

“Henry’s got that post-bop beat, just a great feel,” Clark said. “When I play that ride cymbal, I want the bassist right there with me. He’s got that modern edge.”

To the best of his recollection, Franklin hasn’t performed in San Francisco since the mid-1970s. The Wide Hive connection, though, has reintroduced the bassist to the Bay Area. The day before the Joe Henderson Lab gig, Clark will regroup with Henderson and Franklin at Wide Hive to record a quartet session with Patrice Rushen.

“Gregory’s searching for the real deal,” said Franklin, who’s released around two dozen albums on his Skipper Productions label. “He’s got his direction set. And just as importantly, he’s a real sweetheart, just a cool guy to work with.”

Rounding out the Kosen Rufu album and the live quintet at SFJAZZ are two singular players from Seattle, the uncategorizable pianist/keyboardist Wayne Horvitz, best known in some circles for his extensive work with John Zorn, and Critters Buggin saxophonist Skerik, a longtime collaborator with Bay Area bassist Les Claypool.

When asked about his musical identity, Clark is quick to declare that “given my druthers, I’m a bebop/post-bop drummer,” inspired by the likes of Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones and Tony Williams. But given his Headhunters work — his beats from “Actual Proof” and “Butterfly” have been widely sampled — he often gets calls for funk-related dates.

Howe, meanwhile, isn’t looking to put Clark in a particular box with his recordings for Wide Hive — something the drummer appreciates.

“In my estimation, Mike is of the 10 greatest drummers,” Howe said. “His discography is scary good, and so much of it was done here [in the Bay Area]; the Headhunters, Vince Guaraldi. He can play anything and you know it’s going to be soulful.”

For Howe, it’s another opportunity to capture a jazz original in his prime, surrounded by compatriots with their own musical tales to tell.

Mike Clark performs with Eddie Henderson, Henry Franklin and Skerik on Sept. 14 and 15 at SFJAZZ’s Joe Henderson Lab in San Francisco. Details here.