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Luther Thomas Human Arts Ensemble: Funky Donkey
by Derek Taylor
Luther Thomas was one of the early pioneers in the struggle to mesh free jazz-based improvisation with the visceral rhythms of funk and Rhythm and Blues. Working with colleagues in the Black Artist’s Guild, an AACM-styled musician’s collective based in St. Louis, Missouri, in the early 1970s he hatched a handful of recorded experiments that traced ...
Roy Campbell's Pyramid Trio: Ethnic Stew and Brew
by Derek Taylor
Saxophone trios rounded out by bass and drums are a regularity in creative improvised music. Strangely, trios led by trumpet are a comparatively rare occurrence. The reasons behind the disparity are debatable but may have something to do with the perceived difficulties in timbre and range sometimes attached to brass instruments. Where the adroit brass player ...
Ori Kaplan Trio Plus: Delirium
by Derek Taylor
Sterility and stagnation are a bane of creative improvised music and working with the common color scheme of acoustic instruments it can sometimes be a challenging task finding something new to say. Ori Kaplan, a young but significantly talented saxophonist based in Brooklyn, has hatched upon an interesting variation on the trio form to combat potential ...
Cecil Payne: Chic Boom
by Derek Taylor
Active during the birth of be-bop Cecil Payne has been making memorable music for over sixty years. His warmly expressive baritone sound is a regular fixture in Chicago clubs like the Jazz Showcase, the venue where this affable string of dates for Delmark was taped. Payne's reservoir for Delmark is now four records deep and the ...
ROVA: As Was
by Derek Taylor
Saxophone quartets are no longer the radical innovation they once were. Groups like The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet and The Brooklyn Saxophone Quartet among others have appropriated the mantle originally carved out by ensembles like ROVA and the World Saxophone Quartet and in the process made the instrumentation a far more commonplace occurrence. But back ...
Keith Yaun Quartet: Amen: Improvisations on Messiaen
by Derek Taylor
Classical composition and jazz improvisation have a relatively short history of co-existence most prominently traced in the developments of the Third Stream. Keith Yaun adds a new entry to the lineage through the austere interpretations of Olivier Messiaen scores, which comprise this disc. His partners in the project prove well suited to the kind of chamber ...
Albert Nicholas w/ Art Hodes All-Star Stompers: Albert
by Derek Taylor
Nicholas and Hodes are two names that should ring resounding bells in the ears of the average traditional jazz fan. Nicholas’ played with nearly all the greats including King Oliver (as Johnny Dodd’s successor), Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller and Kid Ory among a host of others- ironclad credentials by any estimation. ...
Roy Campbell's Pyramid Trio: Ethnic Stew and Brew
by Derek Taylor
Saxophone trios rounded out by bass and drums are a regularity in creative improvised music. Strangely, trios led by trumpet are a comparatively rare occurrence. The reasons behind the disparity are debatable but may have something to do with the perceived difficulties in timbre and range sometimes attached to brass instruments. Where the adroit brass player ...
New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra: Grace and Beauty
by Derek Taylor
Ragtime’s place as a precursor to Jazz is well documented in the history books. The style’s rhythmic syncopations still retain a tenacious influence on creative improvised music. But listening to the music’s often stiff and structured patterns reveals the distance Jazz has come in terms of thematic variation since its beginnings. The gap between the music’s ...
Various: Have You Had Your Vitamin B-3 Today?
by Derek Taylor
At the height of the soul jazz movement heavy hitter independent labels like Prestige and Blue Note were scrambling to cash in on the craze. Turned out in cookie cutter batches organ combo records only the relative skills and tastes of the musicians to differentiate them. The inevitable critical backlash that ensued swindled Soul Jazz out ...
