Articles by Robert Spencer

Evidence Releases Three Long-Overdue Jazz Gems by Pharoah Sanders

by Robert Spencer
September 26, 2022

From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in May 1999. Ferrell Sanders came out of Little Rock, Arkansas and hooked up with Mr. Herman “Sonny" Blount, who preferred to be known as Sun Ra and dubbed Sanders “Pharoah." A little later a guy named Coltrane asked Pharoah to join his quintet, and the jazz world at large was introduced to the man one reviewer referred to as “the torch-mouthed screamer of the reeds." ...

Billy Bang

by Robert Spencer
May 7, 2004

Violinist Billy Bang is a marvelous bridge from early jazz - his strong influence and tribute subject Stuff Smith - to the most cutting-edge innovations of the avant-garde. His violin playing is astonishingly versatile, encompassing the lyricism of classical playing, a considerable rhythmic sense, and a flair for the dramatic that makes his solos consistently listenable and rewarding. Born in 1947 in Alabama, Bang grew up in New York City and started violin early. Why the violin? ...

Unsung Recordings by Billy Bang

by Robert Spencer
May 7, 2004

Rainbow Gladiator 1981 Soul Note

Expansive and warm, this is one of Billy Bang's best recordings. Tyler had a rough, appealing tone, and he was able to match the passionate lyricism of Bang's own playing. Morris is an uncommonly strong bassist; Rosewoman plays with authority; Dennis Charles is deservedly legendary. The title track runs fourteen minutes and is the brilliant, good-humored jewel of the disc, recalling in mood the sunny Pharoah Sanders releases on Theresa around ...

Anthony Braxton at Yoshi's

by Robert Spencer
March 12, 2004

Anthony Braxton's Ghost Trance Festival took Yoshi's the last week of August and introduced West Coast fans to what the master called “the next level of my work." As always, Mr. Braxton's pace and breadth of vision is breathtaking. In the Seventies and Eighties he moved beyond playing simple song forms, stringing composed sections together with improvisations in concerts that began on one planet and ended up forty-odd minutes later a few galaxies over. Then he began writing “pulse tracks" ...

Blue Mitchell

by Robert Spencer
March 8, 2004

All About Jazz contributing writer C. Andrew Hovan said it best: “Those of you that are longtime jazz fans, take a few minutes and see how many jazz trumpeters you can name in the next minute. All done? I'm sure many of you remember Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Louis Armstrong, and Buck Clayton, just to name a few. Now, how many of you mentioned the name of Blue Mitchell? This trumpeter's greatest success came during his memorable stay with the ...

Hank Mobley

by Robert Spencer
February 22, 2004

In the Unsung Hero business some are more unsung than others, and Hank Mobley ranks with the most surpassingly unsung. But this is no distinction; it is a tragedy. Miles Davis dissed him, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins overshadowed him, and the avant-garde and fusion cast him into penniless obscurity. By the time he died in 1986 at the age of 55, he was largely forgotten. But who knows? If the great Hidden Hand had sent him into the world ...

Unsung Recordings by Hank Mobley

by Robert Spencer
February 22, 2004

Our “Unsung Recordings" section is designed to give you a sense of some of the best recordings of an “Unsung Hero." Here are two of Hank Mobley's greatest - and one of his most intriguing:

Soul Station (Blue Note RVG Edition 7243 4 95343 2 2)

Rudy Van Gelder made it sound great in 1960, and he has made it sound even better now. Soul Station is a set of four Mobley originals and two standards ...

Hep to HatHut

by Robert Spencer
November 19, 2003

It all started with Joe McPhee, and what better place to start? Werner X. Uehlinger, a Swiss music lover, heard Joe's music and was determined to make sure it was preserved and reached the widest possible audience. In 1975, he founded HatHut Records to put out McPhee's music. He did that, but we can also be eternally grateful that at some point early on he decided to bring us the work of other artists as well—artists of like mind and ...

Herbert Distel: Railnotes

by Robert Spencer
September 25, 2003

John Cage once wrote that during a certain period in his life,

I was disturbed both in my private life and in my public life as a composer. I could not accept the academic idea that the purpose of music was communication, because I noticed that when I conscientiously wrote something sad, people and critics were often apt to laugh. I determined to give up composition unless I could find a better reason for doing it than communication. I found ...

Archie Shepp: I Know About the Life

by Robert Spencer
September 25, 2003

I Know About the Life is a 1981 recording, now happily reissued by that splendid avatar of avant-garde music, Werner X. Uehlinger of Hat Hut Records. The rap on Shepp is that after his moment of glory in the Sixties and his no-holds-barred Impulse discs, he lost his edge, or his interest, or his nerve, and retreated. He himself is on record saying that avant-garde music was not commercially viable, and that he wanted to make some music that his ...