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Oliver Lake: Right Up On
by Troy Dostert
Although he will always be known first and foremost as an uncompromising saxophonist who helped catalyze the jazz avant- garde from the 1970s onward, it's also worth recognizing Oliver Lake's ambition as a composer. He has a particular fondness for strings in this regard, actually, as he has composed extensively for string quartets for over twenty years, starting with his String Project on Movements, Turns and Switches, from 1996 on his own Passin' Thru label. But most of his work ...
read moreOliver Lake: Right Up On
by Roger Farbey
Despite having performed with the Flux Quartet since as long ago as 2002, this is actually the first recording of compositions by saxophonist Oliver Lake featuring the Quartet. Lake himself is a septuagenarian of renown having been a founder member of the World Saxophone Quartet and Trio 3 with Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille (whose Time Being album on Intakt is released this year), to name just a couple of examples. Taking his cue more from György Ligeti ...
read moreFrank Lacy: That Which Is Planted
by Mark Corroto
The real reason the revolution will not be televised (with apologies to Gil Scott Heron) is that the sound of the revolution is free jazz. While those street fighting men are satisfied to throw rock music up against the wall, the real uprising is music of bands like 1032K. With roots in the streets and lofts of the 1960s and 70s, trombonist/trumpeter Ku-umba Frank Lacy, bassist Kevin Ray, and drummer Andrew Drury interpret the sounds of Sam Rivers, Roswell Rudd, ...
read moreOliver Lake: Makin' It
by Hrayr Attarian
Changing a few elements of a well known musical format may be all that is needed to create a new and fresh sound. Makin' It, Oliver Lake has taken the old saxophone organ trio popularized in the 1950s by the likes of Ike Quebec and made it into a new vehicle for 21st century improvised music. He has replaced the tenor saxophone--the instrument traditionally associated with this combo--with his alto. Though he remains true to the gospel-inflected ...
read moreOliver Lake Organ Trio: Makin' It
by Martin Longley
This album finds alto saxophonist Oliver Lake in a groovesome incarnation, less disposed than usual towards avant exploration. He's utilizing the classic Hammond organ construction, though without any guitarist in sight. It's just Lake, B3 man Jared Gold and drummer Johnathan Blake, getting pretty close to the expectations of a '60s formula, though still surprising with a few sideways tweaks. The session is produced by Lake's son Jahi, capturing a fully pulsing sound throughout, solid, warm and fruity.
read moreOliver Lake: Lake/Tchicai/Osgood/Westergaard
by Ivana Ng
It is often difficult to transcribe onto a CD the electricity of a live performance, but alto saxophonist Oliver Lake does it with ease on Lake/Tchicai/Osgood/Westergaard. In 2003, Lake completed a brief tour of Denmark with tenor saxophonist John Tchicai, drummer Kresten Osgood and bassist Jonas Westergaard. They immediately went into the studio afterwards, the product of which is this release on Lake's Passin' Thru record label. The disc is an invigoratingly spiritual record whose compositions range from avant-garde swing ...
read moreOliver Lake Quartet: Live
by Ivana Ng
If you listen to a record long enough, you may find yourself liking it more than you did on first listen. But listening to this live session from the Knitting Factory in May, 2001 repeatedly still does not help Native American wood flutist Mary Redhouse's trilling, whistling, flute playing, which strangely enough often sounds like her own howling vocals. “Naisiai is a traditional Navajo chant that melds Redhouse's wailing vocals and meandering flute notes. As the second ...
read moreMakanda Ken McIntyre: In the Wind
by Rex Butters
In the Wind adds a much-needed title to the sadly thin discography of tireless educator, wind master, innovator, composer, and African American music activist Makanda Ken McIntyre. The late McIntyre counted several remarkable classics among his recorded works, including Cecil Taylor's Unit Structures, performances with Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Beaver Harris, and an appearance on Sam Rivers/Alan Douglas' hugely influential Wildflowers collection, as well as his own sought-after Chasing the Sun and Open Horizon, but he devoted his life ...
read moreMakanda Ken McIntyre: In The Wind: The Woodwind Quartets
by Kurt Gottschalk
In his final years, multi-reedist Makanda Ken McIntyre was fond of saying in concert that a piece was off his last album, which came out more than twenty years prior. He would laugh, but the joke pointed out how criminally underdocumented he was during his life. In June 2001, that industry oversight was finally corrected with the release of A New Beginning , a bitterly ironic title since he died the same month. McIntyre's associations were few, which ...
read moreMakanda Ken McIntyre: In The Wind: The Woodwind Quartets
by Jerry D'Souza
Makanda Ken McIntyre left behind a wealth of music, some of which appears on this recording. He was an innovator and, if memory need be jogged, this release serves to accomplish that in no uncertain terms. Recorded in 1995 and 1996, McIntyre transformed the music here by overdubbing instruments. That in itself may not mean much, but what makes this compelling is that by turning them into quartet woodwind combinations, he underlined the cogency and the measure of his imagination.
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