Jazz Articles about Sonny Sharrock

About Sonny Sharrock

Album Review

Henry Grimes & Marzette Watts: The Call

Read "The Call" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 5, 2026

Long before Henry Grimes became known as jazz's great Lazarus story, he was simply one of the most technically astonishing bassists working in New York City's' free jazz underground. Recorded on December 28, 1965, and issued by ESP-Disk in 1966, The Call stands as his debut as a leader, and it remains a document of quiet audacity rather than the raw energy so often associated with the label's catalog. Teaming with clarinetist Perry Robinson and drummer Tom Price, Grimes assembled ...

Jazz Fiction

Ignition of the Ages: Sonny Sharrock’s Seismic Siege of the Detroit State Theatre

by Dave Kaufman
February 12, 2026

Sonny Sharrock was a singular force in music, a brilliant and volcanic guitarist who bridged the jagged divide between the visceral power of Jimi Hendrix and the spiritual depth of John Coltrane. In 1991, he released his masterpiece, “Ask the Ages," a record that remains a high-water mark of modern jazz. Tragically, it would serve as his final statement; Sharrock passed away just a few years after its release, leaving behind a profound “what-if" in the history of the genre. ...

Radio & Podcasts

String Players: Sonny Sharrock to Charles Mingus

by Jerome Wilson
November 6, 2024

This show. from September 15, 2020, focuses on string players, mostly guitarists but bassists, cellists and a harp player are also thrown into the mix. Specific musicians heard include Sonny Sharrock. Lonnie Johnson. Tomeka Reid, Charles Mingus, and Brandee Younger. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Joel Harrison “Stratusphunk" from Mother Stump (Cuneiform) 1:00 Stephan Crump/Mary Halvorson “Turns to ...

Album Review

Steve Marcus, Miroslav Vitous, Sonny Sharrock, Daniel Humair: Green Line

Read "Green Line" reviewed by Joshua Weiner

by Joshua Weiner
August 31, 2024

Several decades into the jazz reissue boom, first on CD and now increasingly on vinyl, one might imagine the bottom of the barrel is being scraped, and that any newly rediscovered obscurities might at this point have been best left alone. Yet so vast are the archives of recorded jazz that diamonds remain in the mine, exemplified by Green Line, a beautiful document of a single session in Tokyo on September 11, 1970, credited jointly to saxophonist Steve Marcus, bassist ...

Album Review

Don Cherry: Where Is Brooklyn? & Eternal Rhythm - Revisited

Read "Where Is Brooklyn? & Eternal Rhythm - Revisited" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
November 15, 2023

Nel percorso artistico di molti, è decisivo il rapporto tra emancipazione ed auto-affermazione. Il jazz moderno è spesso testimone di una dialettica feconda tra individualismo e trama collettiva, ma è dirimente il tema dell'originalità. “Se sei come tutti gli altri, a che serve il jazz?," diceva spesso Monk. E un vero “percorso," costellato da innumerevoli stazioni, è stato quello di Don Cherry, mai del tutto soddisfatto delle sue conquiste, costantemente messe in discussione. Ammesso e non concesso che Cherry sia ...

Reassessing

The Electric Years Box Set

by Mike Jurkovic
November 9, 2023

In a year that has brought us a true bounty of previously unheard majesty including Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy (Impulse!), and Bill Evans; Treasures: Solo, Trio & Orchestra Recordings from Denmark (1965-1969), (Elemental Music) it is only fitting that Miles Davis get his due. And in a very, very big way. Seared into modern memory, modern art, the music presented on the gloriously massive, eleven LP set Miles Davis: The Electric Years ...

Film Review

Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

by Ian Patterson
August 5, 2021

Various Artists Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) Onyx Collective/Searchlight Pictures 2021 One of the most thought-provoking moments in Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson's documentary on the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival comes from a festival attendee, looking back from the distant perspective of half a century. “I had never seen so many black people before," he recalls, still awestruck, all these years later, at the memory of 50,000 black people gathered ...