Jazz Articles about Joe McPhee

Joe McPhee: Angels, Devils & Haints

by Lyn Horton
April 29, 2009

In 1965, Joe McPhee met Donald Ayler by chance in a New York record store. Ayler asked McPhee to join him at a rehearsal where Albert Ayler would be, but unfortunately McPhee was unable to make the rehearsal. That missed opportunity triggered a powerful response in May 2000, when McPhee invited a group of musicians to join him for two concerts in France, entitling them The Albert Ayler Project 2000. Angels, Devils & Haints, a two-volume recording, is the result ...

Joe McPhee: Tomorrow Came Today & Sweet Freedom- Now What?

by Robert Iannapollo
April 4, 2009

Joe McPhee / Paal Nilssen-Love Tomorrow Came Today Smalltown Superjazzz 2008 Joe McPhee / Lisle Ellis / Paul Plimley Sweet Freedom - Now What? Hatology 1994-2008 Since his earliest releases, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee has favored that most intimate form of communication, the duet. His earliest duo recording was Pieces Of Light (1974) with synthesizer ...

Joe McPhee Survival Unit I I I: Don't Postpone Joy!

by Glenn Astarita
March 24, 2009

This 2007 release for the Italy-based Tracce label presents saxophonist/trumpeter Joe McPhee's Survival Unit III improvisation group, which signifies the final moniker for the trio that was originally called The Alto Trio. The origination of the core trio, known as Survival Unit I, came to fruition during the '60s, sparked by themes centered upon social injustices and the Vietnam War.

Captured live during the Italian Tradizione Jazz Festival in Movimento, McPhee and his comrades generate gobs of expressionism, ...

Joe McPhee: Tomorrow Came Today

by Lyn Horton
January 20, 2009

Music and talking are two modes of expression rooted in human communication. Most of the time, the audible distinction is clear. Sounds are sounds and words are words: the medium makes no difference in how one hears the instrumentality of either. In the context of improvisation, reed player Joe McPhee and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love challenge the definition of both music and talking on Tomorrow Came Today by forcefully transforming the inflections of one into the other. There is no talking...only ...

Magic: Joe McPhee with Trio X and Mikolaj Trzaska at Firehouse 12 in New Haven

by Lyn Horton
November 29, 2008

MagicFirehouse 12New Haven, ConnecticutOctober 31, 2008

The wonder of magic is captured in transformation: witnessing how seemingly disparate elements merge and evolve into something greater than its parts with an impact that is unexpected and glistens with beauty. That Joe McPhee so aptly named the combination of Trio X and Mikolaj Trzaska, “Magic," is evidence of his understanding that out of two separate entities something wonderful could happen, and so it did, at ...

Joe McPhee / Lisle Ellis / Paul Plimley: Sweet Freedom - Now What?

by Chris May
October 5, 2008

The older you grow, the more conservative you get and the safer the parameters you set yourself; or so conventional wisdom has it. Now within a whisker of his 70th birthday, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee doesn't so much defy the cliche as explode it; still stretching his music, still protesting against injustice.

Joe McPhee - Dominic Duval: The Open Door

by AAJ Italy Staff
June 18, 2008

Dopo l’omaggio al padre del free jazz - The Dream Book era dedicato alla musica di Ornette Coleman - arriva il tributo a Jackie McLean, contraltista che pur senza le stimmate del genio, ha dato un contributo importante agli sviluppi della musica afroamericana. E sia allora, era il 1998, sia in questo The Open Door esattamente dieci anni dopo, i protagonisti dell’incisione rispondono ai nomi di Joe McPhee e Dominic Duval. Compagni di avventura in una quantità enorme di registrazioni ...