Articles by John Ballon

Blues Legacies And Black Feminism

by John Ballon
October 11, 2004

Angela Y. Davis Blues Legacies And Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday Vintage 1999 ISBN 0679771263

In her exploration of Gertrude “Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, Angela Davis reveals how these women helped shape black and feminist consciousness as they defied the dominant culture. Challenging ideas of gender-based inferiority and bourgeois propriety, their songs expressed female self-possession and assertiveness, particularly in the ...

Grant Green: Carryin' On

by John Ballon
December 19, 2003

Having firmly established himself as the '60s jazz guitarist second only to the great Wes Montgomery, Grant Green was willing and able to move into something new and give himself up to the emerging funk wave that would seep across the '70s.

Attacked by purists as Grant's grand selling-out, these recordings have been rediscovered and widely sampled by legions of acid-jazz aficionados. Hypnotically rhythmic and quintessentially grooving, the five tracks on this straight reissue are all exceptionally tasty bursts of ...

Horace Silver: Horace Silver: Re-Entry

by John Ballon
December 19, 2003

Rare and essential live recordings that capture the great Horace Silver Quintet in action at New York City's Half-Note. Always a force to be reckoned with, Silver's mid-60s band was consistently adventurous, original, and funky, anchored in the steady rhythms of bassist Larry Ridley and drummer Roger Humphries, and steeped in the passion of Joe Henderson's tenor sax. In many ways, these recordings are defined by Henderson's inspired playing, as Joe gets many chances to ...

John Coltrane: Ole

by John Ballon
November 23, 2003

John Coltrane never stopped wondering what he wanted from music, and never stopped pushing the boundaries. Trane genuinely strove to be saintly in his devotion to the divine, creating a body of deeply spiritual music that has come to be regarded as holy by his many devotees. His musical legacy was officially consecrated in 1971, when the Church of Saint John Will-I-Am Coltrane was founded in San Francisco. A gentle and enigmatic man of many voices, Trane was an often ...

The Crusaders: Crusaders I

by John Ballon
November 23, 2003

Most people think that when the Jazz Crusaders dropped the “Jazz" from their name, they also dropped the jazz from their playing. When the band first decided to call themselves the Crusaders, it was only to expand their musical horizons beyond what was narrowly defined as “jazz" at the time. True, the band quickly came to symbolize the commercial dumbing-down of once vibrant and creative jazz musicians in the lean years of the 1970s.And true, the band eventually ...

Donald Byrd: Kofi

by John Ballon
November 4, 2003

An album of previously unreleased material taken from two 1969-1970 sessions which capture the immensely talented trumpeter Donald Byrd in a transitional moment of artistic brilliance. The first two tracks, “Kofi" and “Fufu," were both recorded during the 1969 session, and are the most original and imaginative compositions on the album. Rooted in the hypnotic African-infused rhythms of drummer Mickey Roker, bassist Ron Carter, and percussionists Airto and Dom Um Romao, these two tracks synthesize the modal, electric, hard bop, ...

Donald Byrd: Electric Byrd

by John Ballon
November 4, 2003

Considered by some to be trumpeter Donald Byrd's last worthwhile jazz recording, Electric Byrd is a high-flying relic from 1970. This album can be understood as Byrd's formidable response to the musical challenges set down by trumpet-rival Miles Davis with his epic Bitches Brew recordings from a year earlier. Clearly Miles is the ghost presence here, with distinct echoes of his sound permeating the vibe of this exploratory set. Byrd demonstrates on his three originals that he, too, was a ...

Charles Lloyd: Forest Flower

by John Ballon
November 2, 2003

Recorded live at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1966, Forest Flower was the jazz soundtrack of the Flower Power movement. Always accessible and majestic, the Charles Lloyd Quartet was recorded here at the peak of its powers. The title track, “Forest Flower," actually is split into two parts, “Sunrise" and “Sunset," which merge together seamlessly to form a single piece of astonishing unity, with Charles Lloyd, Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee, and Jack DeJonette playing beyond the point of empathy. There ...

George Benson: The Other Side Of Abbey Road

by John Ballon
November 2, 2003

I first heard The Other Side Of Abbey Road at a cozy coffee shop in Hollywood, California, early in my jazz discovery days. At the time, I was just recovering from a heavy overdose on the Beatles, having listened to all their post-LSD records almost exclusively for several months. I was ready for something new, and an album of Beatles covers was not exactly what I had in mind. Nevertheless, my curiosity was aroused once George Benson's velvety voice rang ...

Ray Barretto: Acid

by John Ballon
October 31, 2003

By the time 1968 rolled around, Ray Barretto was a celebrated studio session player whose hard-driving conga rhythms could be heard all over the records of Dizzy Gillespie, Cal Tjader, Cannonball Adderley, and countless others. Once he dropped Acid onto the music world, Barretto firmly established a reputation for himself as an innovator in his own right.

Like the drug itself, Acid had a mind-expanding influence on everyone, allowing for a far more adventurous and eclectic edge to slip into ...