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About Thurman Barker
String Trio of New York with Paul Kane: Intimations
by Troy Dostert
In a recording career spanning 19 albums going back to 1979's First String (Black Saint), the String Trio of New York has consistently produced an impressive body of music dedicated to obliterating the boundaries separating jazz from other idioms. The artistic breadth of the group has always resisted easy categorization, as a wide range of classical and folk forms peek through at any given moment despite the group's obvious affinity for the jazz tradition. One constant which has endured is ...
Continue ReadingButch Morris: Current Trends in Racism in Modern America
by Howard Mandel
When a full house of ardent downtown music followers flocked to the old Kitchen, a performance loft on Broome Street in Manhattan's artsy Soho district on the cold night of February 1, 1985 to hear Current Trends in Racism in Modern America by Lawrence Douglas “Butch" Morris--I don't recall if it was advertised as “Conduction No. 1"--no one knew what to expect. At that time, as now, Butch was an inspired and productive presence on a diversified music ...
Continue ReadingThe Jazz Doctors: Intensive Care / Prescriptions Filled
by Chris May
Beyond its initiates, the so-called New Thing which emerged in mainly, but not exclusively, Black US jazz in the 1960s/70s, was perceived so amorphously that prairie-wide distinctions between its practitioners went unregarded. Among the general jazz audience, the musicians were lumped together as a horde of crazed zombies who lacked all technique, and who had replaced creativity with noise and anger, and beauty with ugliness. Tenor saxophonists were particularly prone to such dismissal and, given the number ...
Continue ReadingSam Rivers: Braids
by John Sharpe
With the fourth issue in its Sam Rivers archival series, the NoBusiness imprint has unearthed a cracking concert recording of a terrific quartet, completed by bassist Dave Holland, drummer Thurman Barker and tubaist Joe Daley. Very few can match Rivers' breadth of experience, which includes not only with leading lights of the 1960s New Thing like Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler and Bill Dixon, but also stylistic antecedents like Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie (the last during the late ...
Continue ReadingSam Rivers Quartet: Braids
by Mario Calvitti
Nonostante sia stato indiscutibilmente uno dei massimi esponenti della musica afroamericana, il polistrumentista Sam Rivers non ha mai pienamente beneficiato del riconoscimento dovutogli per gli enormi meriti artistici; non quando era in vita, e non ancora oggi, a dieci anni dalla scomparsa. La sua discografia da leader è cominciata molto tardi, quando Rivers era già quarantenne, con una serie di titoli pubblicati su Blue Note negli anni '60, e proseguita con alcune incisioni per la Impulse! nel decennio ...
Continue ReadingThurman Barker: Strike Force
by Stephen Latessa
I have a real fondness for percussion-based albums. Art Blakey's Drums Around The Corner and The African Beat, not to mention Sabu's Palo Congo, have a quirkily distinctive place in my collection. There is a certain unspoken challenge assumed in making a percussion album. The artist sets out to prove just how musical, for lack of a better word, his or her instrument is. They assert the primacy of the beat, eschewing the clutter of horns or strings. ...
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