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Jazz Articles about Byard Lancaster

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Album Review

Bill Dixon: With Archie Shepp, 7-Tette & Orchestra Revisited

Read "With Archie Shepp, 7-Tette & Orchestra Revisited" reviewed by Chris May


If Bill Dixon is today, in 2023, less widely remembered than other New Thing warriors such as Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler, it is partly because he had little desire for celebrity, devoting much of his energy to organizing on behalf of his fellow musicians and composers, and teaching. In 1964, midway through making the 1962-1967 recordings collected on this album, Dixon organized the historic October Revolution in Jazz at the Cellar Café in Manhattan, which ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Stratusphunk: From the Airliner Lounge to Outer Space

Read "Stratusphunk: From the Airliner Lounge to Outer Space" reviewed by David Brown


This week, birthday tributes to Abby Lincoln and Byard Lancaster, solo piano works from Lucian Ban, Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou and Dr. Billy Taylor, Ellington arranges Monk, early works from George Russell and a swingin' Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Quartet live at the Airliner Lounge, and more! Playlist Thelonious Monk “Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at the It Club-Complete (Columbia) 00:30 Abbey Lincoln “Afro-Blue" from Abbey is Blue (Craft Recordings ) 02:00 Greg Ward “The Contender" from Stomping off from Greenwood (Greenleaf ...

4
Radio & Podcasts

A Few Of My Favorite 2022 Jazz Things (So Far) - Part 2

Read "A Few Of My Favorite 2022 Jazz Things (So Far) - Part 2" reviewed by Ludovico Granvassu


Here are some of the tunes that we have loved the most during these first six months of the year. Surely there are tens more of equal value, but this is not a scientific exercise... rather, since jazz is all about living in the moment, we made our selections based on the strong, and lasting, impression these tunes elicited when we first heard them. Happy listening! Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & ...

1,010
Profile

Byard Lancaster: From A Love Supreme to The Sex Machine

Read "Byard Lancaster: From A Love Supreme to The Sex Machine" reviewed by Clifford Allen


[ Editor's Note: This 2005 article was reprinted in memory of Byard Lancaster who died on August 23, 2012. ] “From A Love Supreme to The Sex Machine" is reedman Byard Lancaster's personal aesthetic mantra, something that recalls the theme of the Charles Moffett tune “Avant-garde Got Soul Too." Free jazz and creative improvisation historically have not often been viewed as the music of the people, but the idea behind the term 'avant-garde' is ...

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Album Review

Byard Lancaster: Sounds of Liberation: New Horizons

Read "Sounds of Liberation: New Horizons" reviewed by Clifford Allen


In the years following saxophonist John Coltrane's death and the related dearth of opportunities to perform and record the New Music stateside, a significant body of musicians relocated to Europe, to ply their art in a more receptive atmosphere. Reedman Byard Lancaster was one of the second wave of American free jazz musicians to relocate to Paris in the late 1960s, recording and gigging as part of drummer Sunny Murray's Acoustical Swing Unit and leading his own ensembles with musicians ...

354
Album Review

Byard Lancaster: Live at Macalester College

Read "Live at Macalester College" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Sometimes the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and sometimes it is less. The latter is true for this reissue of Live at Macalester College by the Byard Lancaster unit. The music, deftly played and improvised by all the musicians, is avant-garde and free jazz in character during the leader's various horn solos, more traditional soul-jazz when the rhythm section is in the forefront, and has tinges of Afro-Cuban rhythms when the percussion is the dominant voice. ...

283
Album Review

Byard Lancaster: It's Not Up to Us

Read "It's Not Up to Us" reviewed by Jason Verhagen


Originally released in 1968 on the Vortex Label, this eight-track gem was Lancaster's debut as a leader. Lancaster is a very important musical entity and also very unspoken - his work with Sun Ra, Philly Joe Jones, Sunny Murray, Larry Young and Fred Hopkins didn't exactly make him a superstar (he would often perform on Philadelphian street corners). Lancaster, influenced by children's songs, folk music, Beethoven and James Brown, writes, teaches and plays flute, clarinet, alto, tenor and soprano saxophones. ...


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