Jazz Articles about Frank Lowe

About Frank Lowe

Liner Notes

Butch Morris: Current Trends in Racism in Modern America

by Howard Mandel
June 29, 2023

When a full house of ardent downtown music followers flocked to the old Kitchen, a performance loft on Broome Street in Manhattan's artsy Soho district on the cold night of February 1, 1985 to hear Current Trends in Racism in Modern America by Lawrence Douglas “Butch" Morris--I don't recall if it was advertised as “Conduction No. 1"--no one knew what to expect. At that time, as now, Butch was an inspired and productive presence on a diversified music ...

Album Review

The Jazz Doctors: Intensive Care / Prescriptions Filled

Read "Intensive Care / Prescriptions Filled" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
June 5, 2023

Beyond its initiates, the so-called New Thing which emerged in mainly, but not exclusively, Black US jazz in the 1960s/70s, was perceived so amorphously that prairie-wide distinctions between its practitioners went unregarded. Among the general jazz audience, the musicians were lumped together as a horde of crazed zombies who lacked all technique, and who had replaced creativity with noise and anger, and beauty with ugliness. Tenor saxophonists were particularly prone to such dismissal and, given the number ...

Album Review

Frank Lowe: Out Loud

by John Sharpe
February 15, 2015

In the spring of 1974, the storied ESP label had just released the leadership debut of thirty-year old reedman Frank Lowe, and now he was considering his next move. Val Wilmer in her groundbreaking As Serious As Your Life (Quartet Books, 1977) observes about Lowe: “Everywhere you go in New York you'll run into him, working here, sitting in there, rehearsing uptown, downtown, all around." At this period Lowe was one of the most exciting saxophone players on the scene, ...

Album Review

Frank Lowe: Out Loud

Read "Out Loud" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
December 20, 2014

The year separating Thanksgivings of 2013 and 2014 has abounded in historic reissues and discoveries. There are several from idiosyncratic bandleader Sun Ra in addition to ones from saxophonists John Coltrane, Clifford Jordan and Charles Lloyd. And of course there are such gems as the third volume of trumpeter Miles Davis' Fillmore bootlegs and clarinetist/saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre's New York Concerts on Elemental Music. Among such wealth it would be easy to overlook the limited edition, vinyl only release ...

Album Review

Frank Lowe: Out Loud

Read "Out Loud" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 19, 2014

Musical archeology has become somewhat of a trend these days. It might be explained, in part by the rebirth of vinyl and the excavation of long out-of-print titles, but also there are scores of devoted collectors who've discovered unpublished recordings of significant artists. For the serially neglected avant-garde of jazz, some of these finds have been significant. Albert Ayler's Holy Ghost: Rare And Unissued Recordings (1962-70) (Revenant, 2004) box set and the more recent Centering: Unreleased Early Recordings 1976-1987 (No ...

Album Review

Frank Lowe: The Loweski

Read "The Loweski" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 5, 2013

Producer Michael Anderson has unearthed yet more music from the ESP-disk vaults to complement tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe's Black Beings (ESP-disk, 1974), the session which announced the Memphis-born reedman's arrival as leader on the NYC jazz scene. Recorded at the same date, reputed to be from Ornette Coleman's Prince Street loft, The Loweski adds another 37-minutes of quintessential fire music to his legacy. Lowe was a very different proposition then to his mature persona, coming out of late period John ...

Album Review

Frank Lowe: Black Beings

by AAJ Italy Staff
January 12, 2009

Black Beings, registrato nel marzo del 1973 dal vivo a New York, non è mai stato considerato, dai critici e dalle enciclopedie del jazz, uno degli episodi più riusciti nella produzione del tenorsassofonista nero scomparso nel settembre 2003. Al disco, che a suo tempo venne tacciato di scarsa coerenza, vanno riconosciuti però alcuni pregi innegabili, come una straordinaria e inarrestabile espressività improvvisativa che si basa sulla tellurica e prorompente sezione ritmica su cui intervengono le staffilate solistiche dei due sassofonisti. ...