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Bill Dixon: With Archie Shepp, 7-Tette & Orchestra Revisited
by Chris May
If Bill Dixon is today, in 2023, less widely remembered than other New Thing warriors such as Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler, it is partly because he had little desire for celebrity, devoting much of his energy to organizing on behalf of his fellow musicians and composers, and teaching. In 1964, midway through making the 1962-1967 recordings collected on this album, Dixon organized the historic October Revolution in Jazz at the Cellar Café in Manhattan, which ...
read moreArchie Shepp: Fire Music To Mama Too Tight Revisited
by Chris May
In 2022, it is widely accepted that, when free jazz (aka the New Thing) was in its ascent in New York in the 1960s, there was, despite superficial appearances, no fundamental incompatibility between it and the historical jazz tradition. More contentiously, revisionist historians are now suggesting that there was no real conflict between New Thing and changes-based or modal-based musicians either. They should try telling that to Archie Shepp. In autumn 1966, during the Miles Davis quintet's ...
read moreHoward Johnson and Gravity: Testimony
by Angelo Leonardi
Il Gravity di Howard Johnson è un organico dedito esclusivamente alla timbrica grave (basso tuba, principalmente) con solisti e sezione ritmica. Il progetto risale addirittura al 1968 ma registrò il suo primo disco solo nel 1996 perchè tutte le etichette lo rifiutavano. Alla fine Johnson convinse i dirigenti della Verve, che non se ne pentirono viste le ottime accoglienze che ottenne. L'anno dopo la Verve pubblicò un secondo lavoro (Right Now!, 1997) con ospite Taj Mahal ma il capitolo si ...
read moreHoward Johnson and Gravity: Testimony
by Roger Farbey
Howard Johnson really should need no introduction. He's played with many of the greats including Charles Mingus, Archie Shepp, Hank Crawford, Jack De Johnette and Gil Evans (his solo on “Voodoo Child" was a highlight of Evans's Jimi Hendrix tribute album). He also appeared on Carla Bley's seminal 1971 album Escalator Over The Hill. Throughout his career, Johnson has been a trailblazer in the acceptance of the tuba in modern jazz, not merely as an oompah substitute for the bass ...
read moreHoward Johnson and Gravity: Testimony
by Jack Bowers
Those who see the tuba as a sluggish, unwieldy instrument capable only of rounding out a musical composition in the lower register may have to rethink that appraisal after listening to Testimony, in which multi-instrumentalist and tuba master Howard Johnson ushers no less than half a dozen tubas and rhythm through their paces in a session that is anything but lethargic. True, the tonal range is more in the basement than the attic, but Johnson and his ...
read moreMcCoy Tyner: Tender Moments
by Donald Elfman
Now 66 years old, McCoy Tyner has made countless albums and become an elder statesman of jazz. He is certainly best known as the pianist in the transformational John Coltrane Quartet of the '60s, but it was with Blue Note recordings like this one from 1967, recently reissued in remastered form, that he revealed his personality as a composer, arranger, and soloist.Tender Moments was one of Tyner's first major explorations of the world of colors and textures available ...
read moreMcCoy Tyner: Tender Moments
by Norman Weinstein
This is the first, and arguably, the finest big band album the distinguished pianist ever recorded. Six horns are utilized, with the neglected James Spaulding alternating on flute and alto sax along with tenor saxophonist Bennie Maupin, trombonist Julian Priester, trumpeter Lee Morgan, and the exotic horns, with Bob Northern on French horn and Howard Johnson on tuba. There are six Tyner originals gracing the frustratingly brief album (38 minutes). But repeated listening reveals something very subtle and seductive about ...
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