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Guitar Gods & Goddesses: An Alternative Top Ten Albums
by Chris May
Although it has been present in jazz since the 1920s, when it was routinely used in rhythm sections, as a solo instrument the guitar struggled to make itself heard--literally--until the second half of the 1930s, when reliable pick-ups and portable amplifiers became available. Foremost among the pioneers of the electrified instrument was Charlie Christian, a member ...
Hear My Train A Comin': The Songs Of Jimi Hendrix
by Ian Patterson
Hear My Train A Comin':The Songs Of Jimi Hendrix Kevin Le Gendre 240 Pages ISBN: 97818000500143 Equinox 2020 Few artists have burned as briefly and brightly as Jimi Hendrix, the Afro-American guitarist and singer who set the late 1960s alight with his virtuosity and showmanship. Fifty years after he ...
Pharoah Sanders: An Alternative Top Ten Albums To Feed Your Head
by Chris May
Fellow tenor-wielding sonic adventurer Albert Ayler famously described his own and Pharoah Sanders' relationships with their mentor John Coltrane thus: “Trane was the Father, Pharoah was the Son, I am the Holy Ghost." The epigram goes some way to capturing the scorched-earth ferocity of much, though not all, of Sanders' music in the 1960s. But Ayler ...
Noah Preminger: Contemptment
by Mark Corroto
If you followed saxophonist Noah Preminger's early career you might have read an interview where he revealed his fascination with boxing. The fact that he trained in the sweet science for nearly a decade while making music is evident in the pugilistic blues heard on self-released albums Pivot: Live At The 55 Bar (2015) and Dark ...
Matt Gold: A Guitarist in Songwriter's Disguise
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Combining improvisational concepts with Americana aesthetics is one thing, but enveloping this blend in a songwriter approach is another story entirely. The first concept is common practice these days, the second however represents the unique character which the up and coming Chicago-based guitarist Matt Gold has to offer on his compelling debut effort, Imagined Sky (Whirlwind ...
August Birthdays
by Marc Cohn
August birthdays this week, celebrating the centennials of Charlie Parker, singer Jimmy Witherspoon and bassist George Duvivier. George only did one session as a leader for a French label, which I have never been able to find. So, we pair him with other August celebrants: Jimmy Rushing, Lester Young, Arnett Cobb and Art Farmer. We also ...
Atlantic Records: More Giant Steps: An Alternative Top 20 Albums
by Chris May
Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun's Atlantic Records differs in one key respect from Prestige, Riverside, Impulse!, Strata-East and Flying Dutchman, the most prominent labels covered so far in this Building A Jazz Library series. Those labels' discographies consist almost exclusively of jazz. Atlantic had parallel interests in soul and rhythm-and-blues and, later, rock. This had consequences, as ...
Impulse! Records: An Alternative Top 20 Zeitgeist Seizing Albums
by Chris May
There can be little argument that a jazz label ever captured a zeitgeist more completely than Impulse! did during its original 1960s incarnation. In the US, the fight back against white racism was cresting, opposition to the Vietnam war was growing, outrage over the assassinations of figures of hope such as President Kennedy, Martin Luther King ...
Muriel Grossmann: Reverence
by Chris May
Since the late 1990s, the Spanish island of Ibiza has been synonymous with two things: electronic dance music and 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine aka MDMA or ecstasy. Austrian-born saxophonist Muriel Grossmann has lived on Ibiza since 2004 and her intense wall-of-sound style of astral jazz suggests she is familiar with both those pillars of Ibizan nightlife. ...
Strata-East: Seizing the Time
by Chris May
Operating on minimum finance and maximum passion, Brooklyn's Strata-East label was a pivotal platform for the spiritual-jazz movement that emerged during the Civil Rights struggle of the 1970s. Its closest contemporary comparator was Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Both were non-profit organisations. The AACM was non-profit by design. With Strata-East, co-founder Charles Tolliver ...
