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Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975
by Chris May
Four hours of previously unissued, premier-league music by Charles Mingus is something to shout about, and @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 is about as good as the bassist and composer's posthumously released live albums get. Four CDs chronicle two extended, intense performances recorded in Germany by Radio Bremen. Both gigs featured all-star bands and both are typically and gloriously uplifting Mingus melanges of through-composition and in-the-moment improvisation touching on blues and roots, bop, hard bop, New Orleans marching band, swing, ...
Continue ReadingCliff Jordan and John Gilmore: Blowing in From Chicago – 1957
by Marc Davis
Imagine if Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, at the height of their popularity in 1957, invited a couple of sax guys you've never heard of to play with them. The result would be Blowing in From Chicago--a lively, wonderful record firmly in the Blue Note bop tradition. The rhythm section is extremely familiar: Art Blakey on drums, Horace Silver on piano and Curly Russell on bass. It's the same rhythm section that powered the Jazz ...
Continue ReadingClifford Jordan: Glass Bead Games
by Robert Iannapollo
Perennially underrated saxophonist Clifford Jordan recorded two of his best albums for the Strata East label and Glass Bead Games is arguably his greatest recording and one of the great albums of the 1970s. Everything is right about this date; Jordan never sounded so good, his tone rich and full, his improvisatory ideas taking the models of Coltrane and Rollins and giving them his own twist. Recorded on a “stormy Monday, October 29, 1973," it was originally issued as a ...
Continue ReadingGlass Bead Games
by Samuel Chell
"I suddenly realized that in the language of the Glass Bead Game every symbol and combination of symbols led not to single examples but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge."---Hermann HesseClifford Jordan was a soulful, powerful, deeply thoughtful Chicago tenor player who, though sought after by pianist Horace Silver and praised by fellow saxophonist Sonny Rollins, was fated to be the Lester Young of his era, misunderstood and often overlooked ...
Continue ReadingCedar Walton: Three Sundays In The Seventies
by AAJ Staff
Label M launched its new enterprise with a stunning live and previously unreleased concert by Stan Getz at the Famous Ballroom in Baltimore. With more than 200 tapes recorded by Baltimore's Left Bank Jazz Society legally in its possession, the label continues to remaster and enhance the tapes from a home recorder that captured the spirit of the concerts. In some respects, the Society recorded during what has become a golden age for some of the greatest musicians in jazz.
Continue ReadingClifford Jordan: Night of the Mark VII
by Douglas Payne
Tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan (1931-93) recorded consistently excellent hard bop throughout his three and half decades in jazz. But he was arguably never better than when heard with pianist Cedar Walton's Magic Triangle (which also figures among Walton's best work too). The quartet, with bassist Sam Jones and drummer Billy Higgins, was recorded prolifically between 1973 and 1976 -- mostly for Steeplechase under Jordan's name and Muse under Walton's name. Any one of these sets are highly recommended, offering some ...
Continue ReadingClifford Jordan: The Mellow Side of Clifford Jordan
by Joel Roberts
The jazz world lost one of its great personalities when Clifford Jordan died in 1993. These informal, exceptionally intimate sessions, recorded at Mapleshade's Maryland studio between 1987 and 1991, capture Jordan's big, warm-toned tenor sax in a variety of settings ranging from sax / piano and sax / guitar duos to organ trios and four-horn jams. The album focuses mainly on slow blues and ballads, including Gershwin's “Embraceable You," Mal Waldron's “Soul Eyes," and a Jordan original, “Jug's Groove," dedicated ...
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