Home » Jazz Articles » Booker Ervin

Jazz Articles about Booker Ervin

11
Album Review

Charles Mingus: At Antibes 1960 Revisited

Read "At Antibes 1960 Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto


At Antibes could easily be an all-time favorite Charles Mingus recording if he had not produced such extraordinary sessions as Mingus Ah Um (Columbia, 1959), Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (Candid, 1961), The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady (Impulse!, 1963) and Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (Impulse!, 1964). Listeners can make their own picks, but this live recording from 1960 at the Antibes Jazz Festival in Juan-les-Pins, France, has a power unique unto itself. One can almost feel the ...

11
Album Review

Charles Mingus: At Antibes 1960 Revisited

Read "At Antibes 1960 Revisited" reviewed by Chris May


Charles Mingus' exhilarating blend of roots and the avant-garde only rarely seems as binary* (see below) as it does on this recording from the 1960 Antibes Jazz Festival. Most often on a Mingus album, you do not hear the joins. This time, on one level, you do. Mingus leads a pianoless quintet completed by Booker Ervin on tenor saxophone, Eric Dolphy on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, Ted Curson on trumpet and Dannie Richmond on drums. Bud Powell ...

17
My Blue Note Obsession

Booker Ervin: The In Between -- 1968

Read "Booker Ervin: The In Between -- 1968" reviewed by Marc Davis


There's a kind of music I like to think of as harder bop. It's a lot like conventional 1950s hard bop, but tougher, more muscular, more cerebral. Booker Ervin's The In Between is that kind of record. Ervin has an edgy style. It starts with a John Coltrane feel, then pushes a little further. Not into the crazy, atonal, unapproachable territory that Trane created in his later years, but into music that's more from the head than the ...

372
Album Review

Booker Ervin: The Freedom Book

Read "The Freedom Book" reviewed by Troy Collins


The first of four thematically linked albums, tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin's The Freedom Book is an overlooked classic. The Song Book, The Blues Book and The Space Book were all subsequently recorded in 1964 for Prestige, but this seminal 1963 recording is a masterpiece of unconventional, advanced hard bop.

Less free than the title suggests, the album remains challenging and utterly contemporary. While not as willfully avant-garde as his contemporaries Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman, Ervin (best known ...

334
Album Review

Booker Ervin: Tex Book Tenor

Read "Tex Book Tenor" reviewed by Norman Weinstein


I always thought the ultimate performances of tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin were on (arguably) the greatest studio recordings of Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um and Blues and Roots. This magnificent and long-overdue reissue of a Booker Ervin Blue Note session from 1968 has caused me to alter my opinion. I think this was the tenor saxman's greatest session, and given the company he found himself in, particularly trumpeter Woody Shaw and pianist Kenny Barron, it is little wonder that a ...

481
Album Review

Charles Mingus: Mingus At Antibes

Read "Mingus At Antibes" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Charles Mingus. You just have to know that he would have nudged, cajoled, or bullied his way into the top of this list, even twenty years after his death. Mingus at Antibes is a kinetic, frenetic, dysthymic document of the genius of an overly stimulated, overly indulgent, and overly gifted personality. Mingus was not unlike Mozart in the respect that many of Mozart's contemporaries pondered why God granted such an undeserving imp such talent. So with Mingus. How could such ...

275
Album Review

Booker Ervin & Pony Poindexter: Gumbo!

Read "Gumbo!" reviewed by Derek Taylor


A strange combination of sorts, this release gathers two disparate sessions whose only apparent common denominator is the incredible Booker Ervin. Ervin’s name on the bill should be a signal to most jazz fans that the contents contained herein are worthy of their attention. The added bonuses are many as well and include a brief, but tantalizing meeting between the Texas tenor titan and forward-thinking organist Larry Young.

Poindexter is something of an enigma. He never really made it big ...


Engage

Contest Giveaways
Enter our latest contest giveaway sponsored by Calligram Records
Polls & Surveys
Vote for your favorite musicians and participate in our brief surveys.
Publisher's Desk
How To Follow Staff Writers
Read on...

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.