Jazz Articles about New York Art Quartet
New York Art Quartet: Old Stuff

by Nic Jones
Hindsight can be a wonderful thing. For instance, if this music is imbibed with a measure of it, it's possible to hear that the frontline of trombonist Roswell Rudd and saxophonist John Tchicai is one of the most distinctive in improvised music of recent decades. Rudd enjoyed, of course, a similar musical relationship with Steve Lacy, and while nothing can be taken away from that arrangement, his pairing with Tchicai sounds astonishingly fertile on this Old Stuff, from almost half ...
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by Jerry D'Souza
The New York Art Quartet was a short-lived group. Its first recording was the eponymous New York Art Quartet (ESP Disk, 1964), with the original line-up of alto saxophonist John Tchicai, trombonist Roswell Rudd, bassist Lewis Worrell and drummer Milford Grave. It was a highly intense band that parlayed free jazz into stunning directions. Worrell left the band at the end of 1964 and was replaced by Reggie Workman who played on the second record, Mohawk (Fontana, 1965). ...
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by Troy Collins
Despite their involvement in the seminal 1964 October Revolution in Jazz concert series and a few high profile gigs in Europe the following year, the short-lived New York Art Quartet remains under-sung but legendary, with only two official studio recordings to its name--the self-titled 1964 ESP debut and Mohawk (Fontana, 1965). For years the only other commercially available document of the group was an unauthorized release of live radio broadcasts made in Hilversum, Netherlands in 1965, issued as Roswell Rudd ...
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by Clifford Allen
Alto saxophonist John Tchicai co-formed the New York Art Quartet in 1964 out of the ashes of the New York Contemporary Five. Enlisting trombonist Roswell Rudd (who arranged some of the latter group's book), the NYAQ was initially to include the Five's rhythm team of bassist Don Moore and drummer J.C. Moses. However, once drummer Milford Graves sat in, the group's pan-rhythmic die was cast. A number of bassists past through the ensemble in its short life -- in addition ...
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by Mark Corroto
The Fluxus art happenings of the sixties are being recalled today by so many people “that were there,” that it is to laugh (ha ha). Like Fluxus, the free jazz loft scene was witnessed by too few. The music, with all its propulsive energy and (un)structure, was more of a rumored scene, then a music viewed by the thousands. Free jazz, like every great revolution in thought and art, passes before the masses or the critics, for that matter, catch ...
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