Jazz Articles about Sonny Sharrock

Sonny Sharrock: Ask the Ages

by C. Michael Bailey
December 17, 2015

Guitarist Sonny Sharrock had been recording since 1969, in a variety of formats. In 1991, he recorded his masterpiece, Ask the Ages for Axiom records. The recording was produced by Sharrock and MOD Technologies founder and bassist Bill Laswell. Axiom Records was a precursor to Laswell's MOD Technologies. It is fitting that Laswell resurrect Sharrock's magnum opus recorded the year before the guitarist's death. Much has been made of Sharrock making music with former John Coltrane sidemen Pharoah ...

Pharoah Sanders: Tauhid

by Chris May
July 1, 2008

Conventional wisdom has it that saxophonist Pharoah Sanders' signature, late-1960s astral jazz recording is “The Creator Has A Master Plan" from Karma (Impulse!, 1969). But conventional wisdom is rarely to be trusted. Clocking in at an unhurried and mesmerising 32:45, “Master Plan" is certainly definitive Sanders of the time; yet “Upper Egypt And Lower Egypt," from Sanders' own-name Impulse! debut, Tauhid, recorded in November, 1966, is arguably the finest statement in his astral oeuvre.At a relatively brief 16:16, ...

Sonny Sharrock: Ask the Ages

by Trevor MacLaren
May 13, 2005

Sonny SharrockAsk the AgesAxiom1991 Although Charlie Christian introduced the electric guitar to jazz in 1939, everyone playing the instrument in jazz kept his sound and ideas embodied in their playing until the late '60s. During this period the instrument became a vital part of the emerging fusion scene. Some of the electric guitar's most memorable work has come from a handful of rock guitarists who embraced jazz, like Frank Zappa on ...

Miles Davis: A Tribute to Jack Johnson

by Paul Olson
January 9, 2005

Well, here it is, finally: the Miles Davis album A Tribute to Jack Johnson, newly remastered and affordably available to those unwilling or unable to pay for the five-disc Complete Jack Johnson Sessions, which has been available since 2003. That's been Columbia/Legacy's modus operandi for Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way, and now Jack Johnson: put out the box set and after a suitable, cash-draining interval, cough up the remastered album alone.Jack Johnson 's re-release (more accurately at ...

Sonny Sharrock/The Freedom Sounds Featuring Wayne Henderson: Black Woman/People Get Ready

by David Rickert
November 1, 2000

Every now and then a CD comes along which is so bizarre it defies all belief. Each session on this reissue is unusual on its own terms, but when put together makes for a rather strange listening experience.

Sonny Sharrock burst onto the jazz scene in the late sixties with a head full of avant-garde ideas and a guitar which sounded like it was strung with barbed wire. Experimental in every sense of the word, Sharrock has created an album ...