Jazz Articles
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Joe Henderson: Power to the People
by C. Andrew Hovan
Beginning with 1963's Page One, Joe Henderson led a series of five albums for the Blue Note label that firmly established his reputation as a unique and budding artist with something vital to say. He was one of many artists at that time who utilized his Blue Note contract to document his every move while establishing his creative muse during this process. Trumpeter Kenny Dorham would be a major factor in the success of his first few sessions, with drummer ...
Continue ReadingRaul De Souza: Colors
by Arnaldo DeSouteiro
Raul De Souza's life can be seen as a one-of-a-kind story. Indeed, it would make a perfect novel or film script. It may not be as big a tragedy as 'Round Midnight or Bird, but it has drama, love, adventure, and great music. Picture this: a poor child grows up in Brazil working as a weaver and practicing trombone in conversations with a buffalo in the jungle, dreaming of someday becoming an internationally famous jazzman. Suddenly, this dream ...
Continue ReadingJoe Henderson: Power to the People
by Tom Greenland
Joe Henderson enjoyed widespread popularity only late in his career, when his cover albums for Verve achieved high (for jazz) sales figures, but since the early '60s he had been making excellent records, both as a sideman and a leader. Here at last is 1969's Power to the People, one of his best recordings made for Orrin Keepnews' Milestone label, previously available only as part of the boxed set The Milestone Years. Power to the People features ...
Continue ReadingFlora Purim: Butterfly Dreams
by John Kelman
Flora Purim may be one of the most unfortunate stories in jazz of the past 35 years. First coming to light with Duke Pearson and Gil Evans, it was the one-two punch of pianist Chick Corea's Return to Forever (ECM, 1972) and Light as a Feather (Polydor, 1973) that introduced the Brazilian singer to a broader audience. The momentum from these two albums resulted in a series of fine solo records for Purim throughout the 1970s, but personal circumstances sidetracked ...
Continue ReadingJoe Henderson: Power To the People
by David Rickert
The late sixties were an exciting time for jazz, although not a lucrative one. Faced with a declining market share due to the popularity of rock music, jazz musicians were forced to find an audience by pursuing new avenues in composition and instrumentation. Joe Henderson, a much beloved player for the Blue Note label was dropped in the late sixties. Orrin Keepnews, who certainly could recognize great talent when he saw it, signed him to his newly ...
Continue ReadingJimmy Scott: Profiles
by Joel Roberts
No singer in jazz or popular music can convey heartache and loss with the conviction of Jimmy Scott. Then again, few have endured the struggles and overcome the challenges that the Cleveland native with the inimitable soprano has faced over his long and remarkable career. This compilation in Milestone's Profiles series draws from a set of albums Scott recorded for the label over a short span from 2000-01, when he was about 75 and about a decade ...
Continue ReadingSonny Rollins: Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert
by Florence Wetzel
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Sonny Rollins was in his home, located six blocks from the World Trade Center. His evacuation the next day happened to be filmed by CNN. Despite the travel restrictions, Rollins and his band managed to make their September 15 gig at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston. Rollins was still shook up and unsure whether or not he should perform, but his stalwart wife Lucille convinced him to go on. ...
Continue ReadingSonny Rollins: Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert
by Paul Olson
No living tenor player has added more to the jazz vocabulary than Sonny Rollins, and anyone compiling even a conservative list of essential Rollins recordings is going to have great trouble keeping it down in single digits. But as a concert performer, Rollins can be among the most frustrating of artists. Part of that is due to his stubbornly personal notion of what constitutes a good song (this obstreperousness is an inseparable part of his greatness), and part of it ...
Continue ReadingPaul Bley: Circles
by AAJ Staff
Paul Bley's 1970 Synthesizer Show and 1972's Paul Bley and Scorpio are reissued jointly as Circles. Except for “Mr. Joy" from Synthesizer Show, all of the songs from these unconventional albums are presented here, featuring Bley's electronic experiments of the day. While the first half of the compilation sounds slightly dated at times, even humorous to modern ears, the second half is a better gauge of the unique advancements made by Bley in the '70s. No doubt, Bley was ahead ...
Continue ReadingMcCoy Tyner: Counterpoints
by AAJ Staff
McCoy Tyner has basically been making the same insanely luscious and gorgeously dense modal music for nearly 40 years now. Which means that Counterpoints , which consists of five unreleased live tracks from a 1978 Tokyo concert (others were issued in 1979 on the currently unavailable Passion Dance ), is unlikely to offer anything new to anybody who's got more than a passing familiarity with the legendary pianist's work. That said, the sound is clear, Tyner is in ...
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