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Steve Swell/Perry Robinson: Invisible Cities
by Clifford Allen
With Invisible Cities, trombonist Steve Swell and clarinetist Perry Robinson have created a unique snapshot of duo improvisation that, as much as it sounds like a Saturday afternoon loft rehearsal when the rhythm section was too busy, is a compelling document of the affinity between improvisers. Robinson, of course, is the veteran of the two, having ...
Clean Feed Records
by Clifford Allen
Anthony Braxton once said (and I paraphrase him here liberally) that one of his grandest ideas in music was to arrange improvising orchestras at various points in the solar system and connect them via satellite to play as one universal creative music orchestra. It is a grandiose scheme indeed, but one that cuts to the heart ...
Pianist Burton Greene
by Clifford Allen
Pianist Burton Greene was born June 14, 1937 in Chicago. Following a brief stay in San Francisco he moved to New York in the early ‘60s and quickly became part of the nascent free jazz movement, playing with Alan Silva in the Free Form Improvisation Ensemble. He was a member of the Jazz Composers’ Guild, worked ...
Burton Greene: Live at Grasland
by Clifford Allen
You would not be faulted for raising an eyebrow at the appearance of a Burton Greene solo record. It is not without precedent, of course, for 1998’s Shades of Greene (Cadence Jazz) and It’s All One (Horo, 1975) set a worthy course. Nevertheless, Greene’s music has been fruitfully explored in ensemble recordings, from the classic open-communications ...
Jackie McLean: Destination Out
by Clifford Allen
Plagued as we are by historicism, it is not always easy to really hear the music of Charlie Parker as it was played in the clubs or even in studio rehearsals. In some ways, the importance of the artist is more through students and followers than in the firsthand practice of that artist: painter Hans Hofmann ...
Hamiet Bluiett
by Clifford Allen
When one thinks of great baritone saxophonists, the list is relatively short: Harry Carney, Serge Chaloff, John Surman and Hamiet Bluiett are the names that come most quickly to mind. Compared to the vast number of tenor and alto players, or even the throngs of soprano-doublers, the baritone is a criminally underrepresented horn. Part of this ...
Marty Ehrlich: Knows No Bounds
by Clifford Allen
My first experience of Marty Ehrlich was as the lanky, bespectacled fellow standing near my uncle on the back cover of the Creative Improvisers’ Orchestra LP The Sky Cries the Blues. A relatively obscure Leo Smith-directed album cut during the trumpeter’s sojourn in the New Haven scene of the early ‘80s, it is but a blip ...
Charlie Haden: An Analog Guy in a Digital World
by Clifford Allen
Born August 6, 1937 in Shenandoah, Iowa, Charlie Haden came up in a musical family. After moving around the Midwest, he eventually settled in Los Angeles playing bass with Hampton Hawes, Elmo Hope, and Paul Bley. A fateful meeting in 1958 with Ornette Coleman netted Haden one of his most infamous gigs, which continued with brief ...
Joe Morris: Age of Everything
by Clifford Allen
Sometimes an artist comes along that, while making obviously forward-thinking and unique music, nevertheless remains apart from one's expectations that at first it seems unapproachable. Yet revisiting this same artist a few years later, with more listening under one's belt, the value of the work becomes more readily apparent. With this in mind, Joe Morris, before ...
James Spaulding: '60s Sideman Extraordinaire
by Clifford Allen
Born July 30th, 1937, alto saxophonist/flutist James Spaulding spent his formative years in Indianapolis, and moved to Chicago in the latter half of the '50s, appearing on early recordings by the Sun Ra Arkestra. Following a brief return to Indianapolis in 1962, he moved to New York and played with Freddie Hubbard, Randy Weston and Max ...
