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Curtis Peagler & the Modern Jazz Disciples: Disciples Blues
by Derek Taylor
Discs like this one are among the most fascinating and enjoyable in the voluminous Fantasy jazz oeuvre; artifacts from forgotten groups who were left by the wayside of popular notice, not because of any absence of talent or creativity, but simply because they surfaced during a time when jazz was rife with staggering amounts of both. ...
John Fahey: Days Have Gone By
by Derek Taylor
John Fahey’s death from medical complications earlier this year was a shock to many of his loyal listeners, but in the context of the commercial music world his passing went largely unnoticed. A prime reason for this disparity of awareness originates in Fahey’s resolute refusal to play the commercial music game and in many instances to ...
Sonny Stitt & Don Patterson: Brothers 4
by Derek Taylor
As far as saxophone/organ combos go, few could rival the rampant prolificacy of Stitt/Patterson outfit of the 60s. Waxing no less than thirteen separate sessions, they also forwarded a standard of quality matched by only a handful (Turrentine/Smith and Davis/Scott are two of the small number of partnerships that stood on similar footing). Following closely on ...
Jimmy Witherspoon: Blue Spoon/ Spoon In London
by Derek Taylor
‘Spoon’ was a singer who regularly defied rote categorization. The rudiments of his vocal approach were most prevalently built from the blues, but over a career that spanned decades he sang in a range of styles that ran the gamut from gospel to pop. Jazz was also a favorite song source for the singer, and Blue ...
B.Lancaster/ O.Pope/ E.Crockett/ J.R. Mitchell: Philadelphia Spirit in New York
by Derek Taylor
Philadelphia certainly seems to receive only grudging affirmation in relation to other urban centers in the larger cosmology of creative improvised music. It’s a crime considering the fact that a solid scene has been thriving there for years. New York and Chicago may have the corner market, but bands like this jointly fronted quartet are surely ...
Jodie Christian Trio: Reminiscing
by Derek Taylor
P>Jazz, like most kinds of music, is a migratory art form. Regional enclaves abound and players are continually traveling and relocating between them trading ideas and innovations. It’s this continuous cross-pollination that is one of the primary ways the music continues to develop and sustain itself. Still, there are certain musicians who set up shop in ...
Kahil El'Zabar & Billy Bang: Spirits Entering
by Derek Taylor
Among the current fertile crop of Chicago improvisors only Ken Vandermark outdistances the recording fecundity of percussionist Kahil El’Zabar. The difference is that for various reasons, most notably the Vandermark’s MacArthur Foundation windfall, more of the reed player’s projects seem to make it into circulation. Still, El’Zabar’s discography continues to swell at a steady rate, thanks ...
Arbee Stidham: Tired of Wondering
by Derek Taylor
Ask your average casual blues fan about Arbee Stidham and a blank stare will likely be your answer. He’s an archetypal example of the forgotten blues hero, one whose past laurels have completely withered with the passage of time. Not so in the post-War years of the late 1940s, when his single “My Heart Belongs to ...
Dick Wellstood/ Cliff Jackson: Uptown & Lowdown
by Derek Taylor
Pairing purveyors of two distinct strains of traditional jazz this Fantasy two-fer is something of textbook study of the piano styles inherent in each. Cliff Jackson, the elder of the two, is representative of the first generation of Harlem Stride pianists. His group takes the disc’s final four cuts and contains several legends of the music’s ...
Houston Person: Trust In Me
by Derek Taylor
Tough tenors were a staple diet for many jazz listeners in the 1960s. Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Stanley Turrentine, Arnett Cobb and so many others (the list could literally fill a ledger pages long) took ample measures of blues and soul-derived emotion and combined them with a no-nonsense emphasizing the tenor horn’s naturally ...
