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Larry Coryell: Improvisations: Best of the Vanguard Years
by Josef Woodard
There have been many smoother operators in the world of jazz guitar than Larry Coryell, the brainy rough rider who was a natural-born fusioneer, in the best sense. There have been cleaner technicians on the instrument, with a more lucid sense of identity and careers that have followed a logical, rolling landscape. But not many have quite attained Coryell's strange, madly eclectic state of grace: into music he came, he saw and heard things not yet articulated, he conquered on ...
Continue ReadingRay Mantilla: The Connection
by AAJ Italy Staff
In primo piano su The Connection troviamo il vibrante latin jazz che Ray Mantilla pratica con successo sin dagli anni '50. La formula è quella consolidata, ma grazie a Mantilla è possibile coglierne le radici più profonde. Significativa è in tal senso la superba traccia sette per sole percussioni, dove il virtuosismo del leader intreccia i pattern ritmici portoricani con quelli brasiliani. La vitalità di questo settetto è ben percepibile, anche se non sostenuta da temi memorabili. Oltre alla sontuose ...
Continue ReadingMax Roach: We Insist! Freedom Now Suite
by Chris May
Re-released following the passing of drummer Max Roach in August 2007, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1960) remains a work of enduring musical and social importance. Notwithstanding Roach's central role in the creation of bop, or his later hard bop explorations with trumpeter Clifford Brown, it is, by some margin, the most perfectly realised album he recorded. 1960 was the year in which black Americans' struggle for civil rights reached critical mass. In February, anti-segregationist lunch-counter sit-ins ...
Continue ReadingRay Mantilla: Good Vibrations
by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
On the cover of Good Vibrations, Ray Mantilla is dressed in black, as if in mourning. It seems appropriate. Two of the nine songs are tributes to the late Tito Puente, and in the liner notes, he dedicates “baritone con Bata to “honor all our heroes of percussion who are here now and who have passed on. Good Vibrations takes a jab at the supernatural, not asking questions about life, death, the pursuit of happiness and what have you, but ...
Continue ReadingRay Mantilla: Good Vibrations
by Nic Jones
Politeness has always been a dubious quality in music. It is, however, one of the most obvious characteristics of this disc. With the exception of baritone sax and flautist Enrique Fernandez, not one of the musicians raises the heat. Instead, a bland uniformity prevails. The percussionists dovetail without injecting the kind of rhythmic impetus that would have elevated the material, and the results could serve well as background music for cocktail parties. They would certainly be unlikely to get in ...
Continue ReadingRay Mantilla & The New Space Station: Man-Ti-Ya
by Javier AQ Ortiz
Man-Ti-Ya is the latest launch of percussionist Ray Mantilla's Space Station, featuring a full-size sounding septet. As usual, Mantilla recruits skilled musicians for his releases. On this occasion, highlights include veteran pianist “Eddie MartÃ-nez, who enhances this recording not only with his remarkable performance, but also through his arrangements; saxophonist Willie Williams, who distinguished himself with trombonist “Papo Vásquez; and flutist and woodwind player Enrique Fernández, who issued MelodÃ-a para congas--one of the salient Latin jazz notes of the late ...
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