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Alan Shorter: Mephistopholes to Orgasm Revisited
by Stefano Merighi
In questo CD dedicato ad Alan Shorter (tromba, flicorno, composizione) si ripropongono le sedute integrali di Orgasm (1968), precedute però da “Mephistopheles," di tre anni precedente, che figurava nella scaletta di The All Seeing Eye, del più celebre fratello Wayne. È un pezzo di una cupezza angosciante, sostenuto da un pedale ritmico minaccioso, dalle cui spire fioriscono severi interventi dei fiati e delle percussioni. Con i due fratelli Shorter, suonano James Spaulding (alto), Freddie Hubbard (tromba), Grachan Moncur III (trombone), ...
Continue ReadingAlan Shorter: Mephistopholes To Orgasm Revisited
by Chris May
It is often said of a musician, be they alive or no longer with us, that they deserve to be better known. This is emphatically true of the wayward trumpeter and composer Alan Shorter, who was overshadowed during his lifetime by his brother, Wayne Shorter, and who continues to be passed over today in 2024. Some responsibility for his obscurity lies with Alan Shorter himself. Known as Doc Strange to his teenage schoolmates in Newark, New Jersey, ...
Continue ReadingMarion Brown: Why Not? Porto Novo! Revisited
by Chris May
Alto saxophonist Marion Brown was part of the band on John Coltrane's Ascension (Impulse, 1965), though you would not guess it from Why Not (ESP, 1968). Like fellow Ascension alumnus, tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders' contemporaneous Tauhid (Impulse, 1967), Brown's album inhabited an intensely melodic section of the 1960s' New Thing. As were Sanders' own-name releases from 1967 onwards, Brown's work was deeply lyrical and embraced South Asian, Maghrebi and West African instruments and constructs. As bandleaders, the two ...
Continue ReadingLife After Rashied: Live at the Woodstock Playhouse 1965; Why Not?; Eddie Jefferson at Ali's Alley; Configurations--The Music of John Coltrane; Mystic Journey
by Gordon Marshall
Burton GreeneLive at the Woodstock Playhouse 1965Porter2010 Marion BrownWhy Not?ESP2009 Rashied Ali QuintetFeaturing Eddie Jefferson at Ali's AlleyBlue Music Group2010 Rashied Ali with Prima MateriaConfigurations--The Music of John ColtraneBlue Music Group2009 Azar LawrenceMystic JourneysFurthermore2010 ...
Continue ReadingRashied Ali: Meditations, Live in Europe and Art-Work
by Kurt Gottschalk
John Coltrane Meditations Impulse! 2009 Rashied Ali Live in Europe Survival Records 2009 Hal Galper Art-Work Origin Records 2009 The eight years John Coltrane spent as a leader before his truly untimely death have been parsed and evaluated endlessly, with such vague qualities as importance, significance ...
Continue ReadingRashied Ali Quintet: Judgment Day, Volume 1
by Erik R. Quick
Rashied Ali is most commonly associated with his short tenure as John Coltrane's drummer on Interstellar Space (Impulse!, 1967). His significant participation in the New York loft-jazz movement by opening “Ali's Alley in 1973 is also frequently cited. His most recent collaborations with saxophonist Sonny Fortune continue the conception of Ali as an explosive participant in free improvisation. Nevertheless, Ali's Judgment Day, Volume 1 is a strictly mainstream outing where he focuses his efforts as a teacher to those relatively ...
Continue ReadingRashied Ali Quintet: Judgment Day, Vol. Two
by Russ Musto
Although rightfully revered as one of the fathers of avant-garde drumming for his role in John Coltrane's last band, Rashied Ali grew up in Philadelphia during the heyday of hard bop, so it should come as no surprise to find him at the helm of a group that reflects the influence of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet, as much as that of the freer music that flowed from the font of Coltrane. This ...
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