Jazz Articles about Richard Davis

About Richard Davis

Album Review

Anthony Williams: Life Time & Spring Revisited

Read "Life Time & Spring Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
March 15, 2022

Drummer Tony Williams' first two albums as leader, recorded for Blue Note in 1964 and 1965--Life Time when he was only eighteen years old, Spring when he was nineteen--still sound delightfully fresh all these years after their original release. At the time he made them, Williams was a rising star with Miles Davis' second and third quintets, the first a short-lived unit with saxophonist George Coleman, the second a longer lasting one with Wayne Shorter. One of ...

Album Review

Joe Henderson: The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions

Read "The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions" reviewed by Scott Gudell

by Scott Gudell
November 22, 2021

If an artist stamps his jazz passport with any one of these labels--Blue Note, Verve, Milestone--it's pretty much a guarantee that you've arrived in style. Tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson has traveled with all three and more. The 2021 reissue from the prestigious Mosaic Records focuses on Henderson's 1960s tenure with Blue Note offers a new opportunity to experience an abundance of rich and creative jazz from the decade. Big band and bop were duking it out in the ...

Album Review

Chico Hamilton: The Dealer

Read "The Dealer" reviewed by Zachary Weg

by Zachary Weg
September 15, 2021

Although it came out in 1966, Chico Hamilton's The Dealer (Impulse! Records) still sounds as fresh as Long Beach mist. Leading a quartet that introduced the late guitar virtuoso Larry Coryell and which placed saxophone master Archie Shepp on piano, drummer Hamilton made a record that both showcased his fellow jazz princes and radiated his signature charm. He also crafted an as-yet-unheralded, unexpectedly resonant work of art. Hamilton, who played in high school with Charles Mingus and ...

Album Review

Clifford Jordan: These Are My Roots: Clifford Jordan Plays Leadbelly

Read "These Are My Roots: Clifford Jordan Plays Leadbelly" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
May 6, 2021

These Are My Roots: Clifford Jordan Plays Leadbelly is an oft overlooked item in the canon of tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, whose chef d'oeuvre was undoubtedly Glass Bead Games (Strata-East, 1974), one of the most exalted jazz albums of its era. But These Are My Roots, which was originally released on Atlantic in 1965 and has in 2021 been reissued on vinyl by British audiophile label Pure Pleasure, is of more than passing interest. The hard bop ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Point Of Departure

by Marc Davis
October 12, 2015

I have put off writing this blog post as long as possible. For three weeks, I've been listening to Andrew Hill's Point of Departure and contemplating what I can say that isn't blatantly subjective and negative.I give up. I just don't like it.I honestly thought I might appreciate this, even though I don't generally like avant-garde jazz. Almost everyone seems to love this record. Let me count the ways:The new book Uncompromising Expression, a ...

Album Review

Heiner Stadler: Jazz Alchemy

by AAJ Italy Staff
May 16, 2013

Può capitare che un CD impieghi anche tredici anni per arrivare sui nostri tavoli, oltre tutto racchiudendo musica che a sua volta, di anni di distanza dall'incisione, ne ha macinati parecchi di più. È quanto accade con questo Jazz Alchemy (che già il titolo...), lavoro assolutamente particolare - al di là degli accadimenti di cui sopra - che merita di essere raccontato nel dettaglio. Ne è responsabile il compositore Heiner Stadler, tedesco di nascita (1942) ma attivo a New York ...

Album Review

Eric Dolphy: Out To Lunch

Read "Out To Lunch" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
January 11, 2012

Recorded just four months before his tragic demise, Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch (Blue Note, 1964) represents a pinnacle moment in avant-garde jazz of the 1960s. Together with Andrew Hill's Point of Departure on the same label and from the same year, Out To Lunch is among the most challenging albums in the Blue Note catalog--one to approach with a very open mind. It is also the only full studio record that Dolphy completed for the label, and the only ...