Jazz Articles about Henry Grimes

About Henry Grimes

Album Review

Don Cherry: Complete Communion & Symphony for Improvisers Revisited

Read "Complete Communion & Symphony for Improvisers Revisited" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
March 7, 2022

Di fronte a questi gioielli di Don Cherry degli anni '60 che cosa si può scrivere ancora? Si può solamente invitare ad ascoltarli con orecchie ricettive e lasciarsi andare all'emozione, come scriveva Nat Hentoff nelle sue note originali per Complete Communion, senza perdere molto tempo in analisi formali poco utili. Questa edizione della collana Ezz-thetics fa scorrere per un'ora e venti minuti due opere manifesto della poetica del compositore-improvvisatore-cornettista e polistrumentista, che all'epoca coordinava organici smaglianti ...

Album Review

Don Cherry: Complete Communion & Symphony For Improvisers Revisited

Read "Complete Communion & Symphony For Improvisers Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 6, 2021

Before his departure, Don Cherry was a kind of Johnny Appleseed for what would eventually be called the “New Thing" in jazz. He can be heard in the midst of the innovative work of Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Albert Ayler, Steve Lacy, Archie Shepp, and John Tchicai. Cherry's fertilizations changed the sound of creative music then and now. His explorations into (what we now call) world music opened doors for countless non- American musicians to participate in creative improvised music. ...

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: Mixed to Unit Structures Revisited

Read "Mixed to Unit Structures Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
June 22, 2021

This story has been revisited before, in the context of an Albert Ayler review, but good stories bear repeating, particularly when they are instructive ones. So here it is again... During a May 2021 interview with All About Jazz, the reed player Shabaka Hutchings was asked to name six albums which had made a more than usually deep impression on him. One of those Hutchings chose was Cecil Taylor's Silent Tongues: Live At Montreux '74 (Freedom, 1975). “This ...

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: Mixed to Unit Structures Revisited

Read "Mixed to Unit Structures Revisited" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
March 29, 2021

La pubblicazione di Mixed To Unit Structures, nella meritevole collana Revisited Series della Ezz-thetics, sotto-etichetta della svizzera Hat Hut, riunisce due date di registrazione importanti nella vicenda di Cecil Taylor, distribuite tra l'ottobre 1961 e il maggio 1966. La prima, composta dai tre brani “Pots," “Bulbs" e “Mixed," era stata pubblicata dall'etichetta Impulse! nel disco Into the Hot, a nome di Gil Evans. I successivi quattro pezzi costituivano il disco Unit Structures, siglato originariamente da Blue Note. ...

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: Mixed To Unit Structures Revisited

Read "Mixed To Unit Structures Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
March 10, 2021

A listener could make it their life's work to absorb and appreciate the music the music of Cecil Taylor. One could possibly approach it as a scholar and musician through notation and transcription—not the recommended approach. Such a task would be similar to the process of systematizing a DNA sequence. Taylor's music, and pardon this analogy, might be best grasped as one might attend to the oxymoronic genre noise music. If you are still reading, allow an explanation. ...

Album Review

Albert Ayler: Albert Ayler 1965: Spirits Rejoice & Bells Revisited

Read "Albert Ayler 1965: Spirits Rejoice & Bells Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 28, 2020

Being that 2020 is more than half a century since Albert Ayler (1936-70) recorded this music, the best way to approach might be through what the Zen Buddhists call Shoshin. Roughly translated as “beginner's mind," or the ability to experience things as if for the first time. Since we cannot transport ourselves back to 1965, taking a posture of readiness and being open to experience the revelatory nature of this music might be the best plan of attack.

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Jazz Poetry

Black Sage (for Henry Grimes)

by Gordon Marshall
July 17, 2011

I have seen the stage lights playthe sly sagacity of Henry's smile:the lightning on his lips, decadesdark with spattered starlight coming back to his eyes.To win words from that smilethat opens like a jackknifedrawing blood from parchment spurting the sanguine melodythe black sage spun like spiderin fury wrapping Ayler's axe--it is a dream, unless the song ...