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Bobby Broom: Modern Man
by Derek Taylor
Call it what you want, Soul Jazz, Organ Jazz, whatever, but the brand of music birthed by the B-3 explosion of the 1960s is alive and well in the third millennium. Blue Note’s new banner reads “One Label Under a Groove” and groups like Medeski, Martin and Wood, and Soulive continue the extract marketable material from ...
Sun Ra: Nuclear War
by Derek Taylor
Apocalyptic in title, but surprisingly upbeat in sound this 1980s Arkestral artifact makes a welcome return to circulation through John Corbett's Unheard Music Series. The album is actually yet another off mark entry in Ra's occasional bid for major label backing. He shopped the session to Columbia, but met with the usual blank stares from the ...
Ron Carter: Pick 'Em/Super Strings
by Derek Taylor
Ron Carter’s place in the preeminent line of master jazz bassists is unassailable. Possessing a gargantuan technique he’s been a prominent bandleader and session man since his start in the late 1950s. Where he’s come under justifiable critical fire over the years is in his at times lamentable choice of projects. The two Milestone dates gathered ...
Masashi Harada Trio: Seismic Plant
by Derek Taylor
Each member a practiced pointillist, the Masashi Harada Trio is perhaps an archetypal abstractionist aggregate. Bhob Rainey and Michael Bullock are veterans of the Boston improv scene and as such routinely traffic in the impressionist currencies Harada also seems to value. The music on this disc is a maze of sonic corridors and trap doors. Harada’s ...
Bill Evans & Don Elliott: Tenderly
by Derek Taylor
Subtitled ‘An Informal Session’ this mid-1950s meeting between Evans and Elliott transpired in the latter’s home studio. Never intended for release, listeners expecting a tightly cropped and polished studio date are likely to be disappointed. Fortunately Fantasy producer Eric Miller opted to leave those extraneous noises that did not directly compromise the music in the mix. ...
Smoky Babe: Hottest Brand Goin'
by Derek Taylor
Blues history is littered with voices that never made it into the studio. Thanks to the industrious efforts of folklorists and fieldworkers like Alan Lomax, Chris Strachwitz, Pete Welding, Harry Oster and numerous others, many of these peripheral figures survive on tape and acetate. One such musical soul is Robert Brown, known by the sobriquet of ...
Reverend Gary Davis: The Guitar and Banjo of Reverend Gary Davis
by Derek Taylor
Calling Gary Davis a bluesman is something of a misnomer and it's a title he likely would have balked at, particularly in his younger years. The blues were but one facet of his far-reaching folk repertoire. Banjo tunes, string band numbers, Tin Pan Alley, and ragtime and gospel all fall under his fertile jurisdiction. In 1935 ...
Jack McDuff: The Soulful Drums
by Derek Taylor
Essentially collaborative ventures the two albums collected on this Prestige two-fer are not only vehicles for McDuff but also, as the title denotes the Soul-injected percussion of Joe Dukes. Both sessions are heavy on grooves, but each suffers from the clichés of the soul jazz idiom despite the dynamic drum play at the core of the ...
Noah Howard: Red Star
by Derek Taylor
Tracing a direct line from be-bop beginnings to the rebellious spirit of the 60s avante-garde the Parisian meeting between Noah Howard and Kenny Clarke captured on this disc connects an elastic tether between eras. At the time of the 1977 studio session Howard and long-time associate Few were well-established free jazz figureheads. Clarke was a living ...
Various: Texas Blues
by Derek Taylor
Commonly regaled as a definitively American musical form, the blues are in fact a living amalgam of social, cultural and artistic antecedents both indigenous and otherwise. African-derived rhythms and folklore intersected with traditions extrapolated from European, Latin and Polynesian sources--with everything falling into the simmering melting pot that describes the music. Distinct styles were the product ...
