Jazz Articles about Jemeel Moondoc

Steve Swell's Fire Into The Music: For Jemeel: Fire From The Road

by Alberto Bazzurro
December 8, 2023

Oltre tre ore di musica catturate in altrettante esibizioni live fra Texas (due, ottobre 2004) e Canada (la restante, settembre 2005) e oggi rese opportunamente disponibili sono ciò che ci offre questo triplo album composito ma per altri versi assolutamente monolitico. Lo firma un superquartetto, sempre quello, che attraversa i sette ampi brani (il primo occupa l'intero primo cd) con fare deciso, ottima capacità di gestire l'evolversi della musica prodotta, i suoi spazi intestini, felicemente bilanciati fra parti corali e ...

Steve Swell’s Fire Into Music: For Jemeel: Fire From The Road

by Mark Corroto
April 29, 2023

If listeners only had the one recording, Swimming In A Galaxy Of Goodwill And Sorrow (Rogueart, 2007) from Steve Swell's Fire Into Music, and did not have the pleasure of hearing the quartet live in person, there certainly would be a large blank spot in their metaphorical dance card. The trombonist Swell, bassist William Parker, and drummer Hamid Drake must also mourn the loss of the fourth member of the quartet, alto saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc (1946-2021). Much like Ornette Coleman, ...

Steve Swell: Astonishments

by John Pietaro
April 20, 2021

Among the trombonists of New York's downtown scene, or uptown for that matter, no one even comes close to Steve Swell. His level of artistry, ability to create within any sonic cloud, compositional strengths and sheer fortitude set a new standard decades ago. Deemed a veteran of the new music that tore up the 1970s and '80s, Swell has, too, been a tireless voice within new millennial jazz and free circles. The music industry has never acknowledged the music of ...

Jemeel Moondoc Quartet: The Astral Revelations

by John Sharpe
November 18, 2018

On The Astral Revelations alto saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc breathes new vitality into the legacy of the loft jazz era where he first made his name. It's a reputation most forcefully burnished in retrospect by the sumptuous box set Muntu Recordings (No Business, 2010), which showcases Moondoc alongside such future luminaries as bassist William Parker and the late trumpeter Roy Campbell. After a hiatus in terms of recording in the early noughties, he's become active once again, resulting ...

Jemeel Moondoc: Muntu Recordings

by John Sharpe
March 18, 2010

Jemeel Moondoc Muntu Recordings NoBusiness Records 2010

Lithuanian based NoBusiness records has put together a wonderful retrospective on under celebrated saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc and his pioneering ensemble Muntu, sumptuously packaged in a three-audio disc plus booklet box set. It's a bulletin from another era, the late 1970s, a fertile period in free jazz history which has been sparsely documented. The set goes some way to redressing that imbalance, with the 114 page ...

Jemeel Moondoc and Denis Charles: We Don't

by Clifford Allen
October 4, 2003

The duo recording is one of the most open windows available into the nature of improvisation; its give and take or “discussive" aspects are often made very clear by two players involved in musical conversation. And nowhere are melody and rhythm so tightly balanced as they often are in a saxophone-and-drums duo. Coltrane’s last and finest flights were with Rashied Ali on Interstellar Space ; Ali and tenorist Frank Lowe met a few years later to record the blistering classic ...

Jemeel Moondoc Vtet: Revolt of the Negro Lawn Jockeys

by Micah Holmquist
June 1, 2001

Maybe I am wrong about this, but it seems to me that in recent years an increasingly large number of horn players -including the likes of Nick Bisesi, Rob Blakeslee, and Joe McPhee- have begun to make music similar to that found on the early recordings of Ornette Coleman. Given that over the past 40 or so years Coleman's advances in the realm freedom have been far more influential than his aesthetic conceptions, this is a welcome development and far ...