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Albert Ayler: Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited
by Chris May
This landmark reissue contains consummately remastered cuts of the killer (among killers) track from Albert Ayler's relatively unknown My Name Is Albert Ayler (Debut 1964) plus the justly celebrated Spiritual Unity (ESP-Disk, 1965) in its entirety. Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited starts with “Summertime" from the 1964 album. In his survey The Jazz Standards (Oxford University Press, 2012), Ted Gioia writes that over 400 jazz covers of George and Ira Gershwin's song were recorded in the 1950s ...
Continue ReadingJerome Kern The Jazz Standard
by David Brown
This week we celebrate the 138th birthday of Jerome Kern. Born in 1885, Kern was an important composer of musical theatre and popular music in the early 20th century. Many of Kern's songs have been adapted by jazz musicians to become standard tunes. Featured interpreters of Kern's songs will include David S. Ware, Connie Crothers, Clifford Brown/Max Roach, Blossom Dearie, Morris Nanton, John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett and Anthony Braxton. We'll also check out some new releases as well as a ...
Continue ReadingTony Williams: Life Time & Spring Revisited
by Maurizio Comandini
Tony Williams è uno dei più importanti batteristi della storia. Non solo del jazz, ma della musica in generale. Solitamente questa considerazione, ampiamente condivisa, fa riferimento alla sua lunga esperienza come batterista dei quintetti di Miles Davis della seconda metà degli anni sessanta ed eventualmente al suo ruolo di leader del gruppo Tony Williams Lifetime nato nel 1969 e durato un paio d'anni. Due contesti di assoluta eccellenza che quindi giustificano il giudizio dal quale siamo partiti. Questa ottima ristampa ...
Continue ReadingAnthony Williams: Life Time & Spring Revisited
by Chris May
Drummer Tony Williams' first two albums as leader, recorded for Blue Note in 1964 and 1965--Life Time when he was only eighteen years old, Spring when he was nineteen--still sound delightfully fresh all these years after their original release. At the time he made them, Williams was a rising star with Miles Davis' second and third quintets, the first a short-lived unit with saxophonist George Coleman, the second a longer lasting one with Wayne Shorter. One of ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: New York Eye and Ear Control Revisited
by Mark Corroto
The backstory of New York Ear and Eye Control is a significant factor in the music and the direction free jazz took in the 1960s. Filmmaker Michael Snow commissioned Albert Ayler's trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray to record a thirty-minute soundtrack for a movie, “Walking Woman," he had yet to film. As explained in the liner notes, he “wanted to buy a half hour of music." Also invited to the session were trumpeter & cornetist Don ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: New York Eye And Ear Control Revisited
by Chris May
The development of so-called free jazz in New York during the first half of the 1960s was topped and tailed by three landmark recordings: Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz (Atlantic, 1961), John Coltrane's Ascension (Impulse, 1966) and Albert Ayler's New York Eye And Ear Control (ESP, 1966). Of the three discs, only New York Eye And Ear Control broke away completely from jazz's normative structure of theme/solos/theme. Commissioned as an art-film soundtrack, Ayler's recording was also the product of an altogether ...
Continue ReadingBill Evans: Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956 - 1980)
by Chris May
Only occasionally do classy looking limited-edition box sets prove to be a triumph of style and substance. Too often they are undermined by cheapskate packaging, over elaborate design, poorly written and researched booklets, inadequate session details or, most egregiously, bizarre (in a bad way) track selections. So it is a more than pleasant surprise when something comes along which succeeds, and succeeds magnificently, on all those fronts. Such an item is Concord Records' Craft imprint's Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: ...
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