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Jazz Articles about John Tchicai
New York Art Quartet: New York Art Quartet Revisited
by Alberto Bazzurro
Questa preziosa (ancora una volta) riedizione di oltre un'ora e un quarto di musica riunisce i primi due album di uno dei gruppi più leggendari della stagione free, il primo intitolato semplicemente col suo nome e pubblicato dall'altrettanto leggendaria ESP fondata nel 1963 da Bernard Stollman (incisione del 16 novembre 1964), il secondo, Mohawk, di pochi mesi successivo (17 luglio 1965), edito su Fontana. Il gruppo è per tre quarti identico in entrambe le occasioni, allineando figure nodali di quella ...
read moreArchie Shepp, Don Cherry, John Thicai, Don Moore, J.C. Moses: Copenhagen 1963 Revisited. Live Jazzhus Montmartre
by Stefano Merighi
Questo concerto registrato al Jazzhus Montmartre di Copenhagen risale a una settimana esatta prima dell'assassinio di JF Kennedy a Dallas. E già questo colloca il nostro ascolto in un contesto, in un'atmosfera specifica. Ma in quel 1963 venne assassinato anche Medgar Evers (il 12 giugno), tra i più autorevoli attivisti afroamericani, freddato da un suprematista bianco e celebrato in questo disco dal brano di Archie Shepp “The Funeral." Shepp sosteneva che la musica, sempre, è sia un fenomeno ...
read moreAlbert Ayler: New York Eye and Ear Control Revisited
by Mark Corroto
The backstory of New York Ear and Eye Control is a significant factor in the music and the direction free jazz took in the 1960s. Filmmaker Michael Snow commissioned Albert Ayler's trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray to record a thirty-minute soundtrack for a movie, “Walking Woman," he had yet to film. As explained in the liner notes, he “wanted to buy a half hour of music." Also invited to the session were trumpeter & cornetist Don ...
read moreAlbert Ayler: New York Eye And Ear Control Revisited
by Chris May
The development of so-called free jazz in New York during the first half of the 1960s was topped and tailed by three landmark recordings: Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz (Atlantic, 1961), John Coltrane's Ascension (Impulse, 1966) and Albert Ayler's New York Eye And Ear Control (ESP, 1966). Of the three discs, only New York Eye And Ear Control broke away completely from jazz's normative structure of theme/solos/theme. Commissioned as an art-film soundtrack, Ayler's recording was also the product of an altogether ...
read moreNew York Contemporary Five: Consequences Revisited
by Mark Corroto
This 2020 reissue of the New York Contemporary Five recordings from 1963-64 can't help but draw one's attention to the social unrest occurring in America in 2020. In 1964 the riots in Harlem and Philadelphia over police brutality were followed by similar riots a few years later in Watts, Newark, Detroit, etc. In the growing civil unrest these recordings were born. The New Thing was the equivalent to what Chuck D of Public Enemy claimed when he said rap music ...
read moreTchicai - Kohlhase - Fewell - McBee - Hart: Tribal Ghost
by John Sharpe
Of all the collaborations in the later years of legendary reedman John Tchicai, some of the most fertile were in the company of guitarist Garrison Fewell, whether under the Dane's leadership like One Long Minute (NuBop, 2012) and Big Chief Dreaming (Soul Note, 2005) or in undocumented appearances with the guitarist's Variable Density Sound Orchestra. Joining the pair on Good Night Songs (Boxholder, 2006), Boston-based saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase completed a formidable unit. For the week long engagement at New York's ...
read moreTchicai - Kohlhase - Fewell - McBee - Hart: Tribal Ghost
by Glenn Astarita
Late saxophonist John Tchicai's roots and influences emanated with the 1960s innovative free-jazz ensemble, The New York Art Quartet. He became a significant global artist in all things considered to be cutting-edge within the ever-expansive jazz vernacular. This 2007 concert, recorded at the New York City venue Birdland, features compositions by guitarist Garrison Fewell and one track written by Tchicai. Ultimately, the album is unique from a perspective that includes sojourns into the avant jazz space, while containing memorably melodic ...
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