Jazz Articles about Joe McPhee

Mat Maneri Quartet featuring Joe McPhee: Sustain

by AAJ Staff
October 10, 2002

In the last couple of years, Mat Maneri has been incredibly prolific. His versatility and range, especially on the viola, have facilitated work within widely different musical contexts. On Sustain he joins a quartet of active NYC musicians, plus special guest Joe McPhee on soprano saxophone. These players have built strong intuitive relationships over time in various collaborations, enabling them to make musical statements in an unforced, natural way. Sustain offers deliberate, open individual and collective improvisation.

The ...

Joe McPhee: Mr. Peabody Goes to Baltimore

by Michael A. Parker
October 1, 2002

Here we have a CD of live performances from Baltimore’s High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music 2000, centered around one of the most noteworthy participants. I think the word “experimental” really carries some weight here, because although most improvisation is inherently predicated on the pursuit of new musical ideas, even highly celebrated examples of improvisation typically operate within certain established parameters, often set by the personal vocabularies of the musicians. In contrast, High Zero, and more generally the Red ...

Joe McPhee's Bluette: Let Paul Robeson Sing

by Derek Taylor
August 2, 2002

The themes of cultural and spiritual emancipation as reflected through the African American experience have served as the bread and butter for the music of Joe McPhee’s Bluette since the ensemble’s origins. It seems only natural then that the group would chose to honor a figure who stands as exemplary of these too often curtailed ideals. Paul Robeson’s life story and work are rich in the principles that drive the quartet and his passion and dignity bleed directly into the ...

Joe McPhee & Joe Giardullo: Specific Gravity

by Derek Taylor
January 1, 2002

Horn duets are often as challenging as solo horn recitals, both to listeners and performers alike. Free from the frameworks of traditional chordal and rhythmic instruments such pairings can also create a rewarding theatre of unrestrained experimentation. The two players who join forces on this disc aren’t your average Joes. Both seem bent from the onset on unlocking this shared state of being.

Cycling through reeds (and in McPhee’s case a spare brass tool) the duo charts a course by ...

Joe McPhee & Joe Giardullo: Specific Gravity

by Glenn Astarita
January 1, 2002

Multi-woodwind specialist/trumpeter, Joe McPhee also utilizes a valve trombone during these duets with fellow woodwind ace, Joe Giardullo on this outing recorded live at “WPKN” radio in Bridgeport, CT. The soloists commence the proceedings with the twenty-eight minute, “A Priori.” On this piece, McPhee and Giardullo toggle between various instruments along with a metronome like clicking pattern, which establishes a sense of time yet eventually, disappears. With that, the duo morphs an underlying sense of rhythm sans the use of ...

Joe McPhee: Underground Railroad + Live At Holy Cross Monastery 1968/6

by Derek Taylor
November 1, 2001

True to their word the folks behind the Unheard Music Series have continued in their charge of returning all Joe McPhee’s early recordings for the CJR label to circulation. The latest installment and McPhee’s debut as a leader, Underground Railroad does one better by adding an entire archival concert to the package. At the risk of completely compromising any sense of critical objectivity at the inception of this review let me just say that as far as vintage ecstatic free ...

Joe McPhee: Trinity

by Derek Taylor
April 1, 2001

Until recently Joe McPhee’s early recorded years were something of a sealed book. The rarity of his vernal trilogy of vinyl releases for the CJR label forced most listeners to access these legendary LPs through poorly rendered bootleg copies or simply via the testimony of the lucky few fortunate enough to own original pressings of the albums. Through the vigilant efforts of the Unheard label the drought has finally ceased and McPhee’s trailblazing platters are at long last finding their ...