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Results for "Reassessing"
Lonnie Liston Smith: Astral Traveling
by Chris May
Lonnie Liston SmithAstral TravelingFlying Dutchman1973 For many jazz fans, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith irredeemably blotted his copy book decades ago. Right enough, for Smith's smooth jazz and quiet storm albums of the 1980s and 1990s were bland, blissed-out, insubstantial affairs. But between 1965, when he was featured ...
Free Jazz
by C. Michael Bailey
Ornette Coleman Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet Atlantic 1961 Alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman's masterpiece, Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet, is one of the hinges of jazz evolution. As a musical hinge, Free Jazz, heard from ...
Chet Baker: She Was Too Good To Me
by C. Michael Bailey
Chet BakerShe Was Too Good To MeCTI Records1974 The modern image of trumpeter/vocalist Chet Baker is a hopelessly fractious one. Baker is, at once, a brilliant musical autodidact with a superb ear while, at the same time, a musician with a nonexistent grounding in musical theory. Like ...
Ornette Coleman: This is Our Music
by C. Michael Bailey
Ornette ColemanThis is Our MusicAtlantic1961 This is Our Music is the militantly expressed jumping-off point for alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman on the way to the epochal Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (Atlantic, 1961). Coleman picks up exactly where he left off on Change of the Century and never ...
Ornette Coleman: Change Of The Century
by C. Michael Bailey
Ornette ColemanChange Of The CenturyAtlantic1959 Change Of The Century was an audacious album title, to say the least. On his second Atlantic release--and second with his most like-minded ensemble (trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins)--alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman pushed the freedom principal farther. At ...
Ornette Coleman: The Shape Of Jazz To Come
by C. Michael Bailey
Ornette ColemanThe Shape Of Jazz To ComeAtlantic1959 Ornette Coleman's Contemporary Records releases Something Else!!!! (1958) and Tomorrow Is The Question! (1959) documented the alto saxophonist's development from the last vestiges of bebop toward a harmonically freer jazz language. Coleman's album titles became more prophetic as they were ...
Ornette Coleman: Tomorrow is the Question!
by C. Michael Bailey
Ornette ColemanTomorrow is the QuestionContemporary1959Shaking out of the contractual obligation forcing him to employ a pianist on his debut, Something Else!!!! (Contemporary, 1958), alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman dispensed with the instrument altogether on 1959's Tomorrow is the Question!, causing a bit of consternation on the part of the ...
Ornette Coleman: Something Else!!!!
by C. Michael Bailey
Ornette ColemanSomething Else!!!!Contemporary2011 (1958) Robert Louis Stevenson noted that, “The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect." The middle-to-late 1950s in jazz were populated with several “good actions," all considered inevitable evolutionary reactions to earlier genre, specifically swing and bebop--the latter the ...
Donald Byrd: Slow Drag
by Greg Simmons
Donald ByrdSlow DragBlue Note2011 (1967) In 1967 trumpeter Donald Byrd was a busy guy, teaching or lecturing at no fewer than four universities. It's a wonder he had time to play, let alone record. Fortunately, he did find the time, and the resulting Slow Drag takes an ...
John and Beverley Martyn: The Road To Ruin
by Chris May
John and Beverley MartynThe Road To RuinUniversal/Island2005 (1970) The posthumous release of guitarist/vocalist/songwriter John Martyn's Heaven And Earth (Hole In The Rain, 2011)--the basic tracks extensively overdubbed, though not edited, by producers Garry Pollitt and Jim Tullio following Martyn's death in 2009--is welcome. Compositionally, it is not ...
