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Clare Fischer Orchestra: Extension
by Dan McClenaghan
The late 1950s and early 1960s saw a change in the approach to big band arranging. Voicings and colorings became more luxuriant, and the palettes began to include more pastels; classical harmonies began to creep in to charts. Gil Evans brought the arranging prowess he developed in the Claude Thornhill Orchestra and the the Birth of the Cool recordings of 1949-50 (compiled and released on Columbia Records in 1957) to his partnership with trumpeter Miles Davis for three ...
read moreClare Fischer Orchestra: Extension
by Troy Collins
When composer Clare Fischer passed away on January 26, 2012, he left behind a diverse legacy. Spending the late 1950s as pianist and arranger for The Hi-Lo's before working alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Donald Byrd, Fischer finally attained greater recognition in the 1960s for his contributions to the then burgeoning Latin jazz and bossa nova craze, including writing the standard “Pensativa."Conceived and performed exactly as he intended, Extension is his masterpiece. Recorded in 1963, the album is a ...
read moreJulius Hemphill: Dogon A.D.
by Troy Collins
Dogon A.D. has long been revered as a classic among jazz connoisseurs; Julius Hemphill's relatively obscure but highly influential debut is widely considered the missing link between the avant-garde and populist forms such as blues, funk and soul. The 1972 recording session for this historic masterpiece originally produced four unique compositions, but Hemphill only issued three on his Mbari Records imprint due to time constraints. Arista/Freedom Records eventually bought the master tapes, using the fourth cut, “The Hard Blues," as ...
read moreBill Dixon Orchestra: Intents And Purposes
by John Sharpe
At last Bill Dixon's almost mythical Intents And Purposes sees the light of day once again. The only sadness is that the trumpeter died in June 2010 before his monumental early masterpiece could resurface. Painstakingly transferred from the two-track masters, the disc is lovingly presented as a facsimile of the original LP with the album cover and liner notes duplicated and the CD, in an inner sleeve, sporting the RCA Victor label. Dixon is on record as saying that he ...
read moreThe Bill Dixon Orchestra: Intents And Purposes
by Troy Collins
Intents And Purposes has long been revered as Bill Dixon's singular masterpiece. Out of print for years, the late trumpet innovator's magnum opus has been lovingly remastered and reissued on CD, by International Phonograph Inc., in a deluxe mini-LP styled package that replicates the original 1967 issue, providing an important opportunity to reevaluate this seminal work. Since his decisive involvement in 1964's October Revolution in Jazz and lengthy tenure at Bennington College in Vermont (1968-1995), Dixon has been ...
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