Jazz Articles

Joe McPhee: From Outer Space

by Thad Aerts
March 11, 2018

Joe McPhee, the 78-year-old multi-instrumentalist dedicated to the saxophone, has a new trio. McPhee on said saxophone with James Keepnews on guitar and laptop, and David Berger on drums make up Plan B. From Outer Space is the trio's inaugural offering. Free in its wandering's, the record is still incredibly cohesive and multi-themed. Recorded as an ode to Sun Ra, the lads execute self-control knowing when, where and how to play. Because of this, the record builds an ...

Joe McPhee: Solos : The Lost Tapes (1980 – 1981 – 1984)

by Mark Corroto
May 26, 2015

The young cats (players thirty years his junior) know Joe. Players who have immersed themselves in free improvisation, like Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson, Peter Evans, Martin Kuchen, and Mikołaj Trzaska, learned the possibilities of creating a new music from, not thin air, but from listening. They model their approach after Joe McPhee. Born in 1939, he has been a musician's musician since his experiments in solo performance in the 1970s. For years, copies of his infamous Tenor (Hat ...

konstruKt and Joe McPhee: Babylon: The First Meeting of Istanbul

by Dave Wayne
December 17, 2014

Taken at face value, konstruKt's catchphrase, “Free Jazz from Turkey," seems a tad pedestrian. But, if one considers Turkey's place in the world-literally the crossing point between Asia and Europe-its crazy-quilt ethnic diversity, and its continued religious and political unrest, it's a fitting metaphor. Oddly, most of the band's recorded output features invited guest artists from the US and Europe. In addition to multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, featured here, konstruKt has collaborated with Evan Parker, Marshall Allen, Peter Brotzmann and Eugene ...

Joe McPhee: Alto

by Lyn Horton
January 5, 2010

It takes a certain amount of confidence for a musician to stand alone on a stage or in a recording studio and play an instrument. One of the few masters of jazz reed instruments, Joe McPhee still proceeds to make music as if for the first time. He is a master of the instruments he plays because, like an athlete, he maintains the physical chops as well as an openness to the application of the musical vocabulary he has cultivated ...

Joe McPhee: Soprano

by Lyn Horton
August 18, 2007

Sometimes, the best way to grasp of the power of an instrument is to hear it in a solo context without other instruments impacting its singularity. It matters if the musician playing the instrument is so engaged in knowing and feeling the instrument's range that the resulting sound emanates seemingly without effort. The music has originated with a master.

On September 10, 1998, Joe McPhee performed solo in St. Georges Chapel in Guelph, Canada at the Guelph Jazz Festival. He ...

Joe McPhee: Everything Happens For a Reason

by Clifford Allen
July 10, 2005

Joe McPhee Everything Happens For a Reason Roaratorio Records 2005

As an improviser, Joe McPhee's art has taken several interesting turns and shifts in focus that one listening to his first few recordings might not have expected. Schooled on trumpet from his youth and studying the tenor saxophone starting at age 29, McPhee's brilliant smears of sound on his composition “O.C.T (that is, Ornette, Cecil and Trane) are altogether prophetic and too ...

The Music Ensemble: The Music Ensemble

by AAJ Staff
March 1, 2002

The '70s were, ironically, a fertile period for free jazz. During an era when rock yielded to disco and modal jazz surrendered to fusion, free jazz was experiencing a renaissance. As always, the forces propelling this advance were not financial (when has a freely improvising musician ever made money?). Instead, it was the sense of community that sprang up in cities like Chicago and New York, with (private and public) performances in lofts and cafes. The Music Ensemble, a collective ...