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Dave Holland's Opus
by Clifford Allen
Bassist and composer Dave Holland has led a 35-year career that many musicians would find enviable: working with Miles Davis' iconoclastic electric ensembles of the late '60s and early '70s; following that up with Chick Corea and Anthony Braxton in the cooperative ensemble Circle; making his first date as a leader with Braxton and Sam Rivers ...
Steve Lacy: With Mal Waldron and the Beats
by Clifford Allen
Steve Lacy / Mal Waldron Live at Dreher Paris 1981 hatOLOGY 2003 According to Steve Lacy, playing Monk's music offered the improviser a way to see what was on “the other side," not just of an individual tune's possibilities, but to a certain sort of harmonic and rhythmic ...
Jeanne Lee: Natural Affinities
by Clifford Allen
All instruments are, naturally, a mere approximation of what can be done with the human voice; yet in avant-garde improvisation, it is the saxophonists and pianists who are credited with being the innovators. Artists like Jeanne Lee, Patty Waters and Julie Tippetts are often shunted aside to make way for counterparts Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, and ...
Sunny Murray
by Clifford Allen
Drummer, composer, and bandleader Sunny Murray was born in Idabel, Okla. in 1936. After moving to New York, a brief period of involvement with bebop musicians quickly gave way to several years of playing with Cecil Taylor (CT) in trio, quartet, quintet and septet settings (1959-1965). In addition to his longstanding association with the “88 Tuned ...
Art Ensemble of Chicago: After Lester Bowie
by Clifford Allen
After Lester Bowie, renowned trumpeter and regular Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC) member (daresay frontman) passed away in 1999, there was some question as to what the fate of the group would be. Of course, many lesser groups have folded with fewer catalysts than the death of a major contributor. But continue the group did, as ...
Pat Martino: Think Tank
by Clifford Allen
It is difficult to make mainstream jazz (hard bop, etc.) relevant in light of the subversion or destruction of its form that occurred over thirty years ago. But, as many improvisers proved, it was possible to make consistently engaging and advanced music in the hard bop idiom well after the innovations of Ornette and Cecil took ...
Tony Oxley: The Baptised Traveller
by Clifford Allen
Though in hindsight many followers of British jazz and free improvisation are well aware of the impact that artists like Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley have had on the course of modern creative music, the original liner notes on this, Oxley’s first album as leader, point to a presentation of new music by none ...
Jemeel Moondoc and Denis Charles: We Don't
by Clifford Allen
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 ...
Mark Helias' Open Loose: Verbs of Will
by Clifford Allen
If modern jazz has truly reached a historical synthesis of the sort that will keep it going indefinitely and show its “guts," then free-bop might just be that most promising vein. It’s not that free-bop is a particularly new animal; the net can be cast to both Ornette and Hamiet Bluiett, but it often shows more ...
Peter Br: The Ink is Gone
by Clifford Allen
In jazz, surprise meetings often produce some of the greatest results. On paper, the duo of Anthony Braxton and Max Roach might look a little strange, ditto the two-tenor front line of Archie Shepp and Hank Mobley. When successful, these meetings can be, like the old cliché, peanut butter and jelly. Thankfully, the crusts remain on ...
