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New York Art Quartet: Old Stuff
by Nic Jones
Hindsight can be a wonderful thing. For instance, if this music is imbibed with a measure of it, it's possible to hear that the frontline of trombonist Roswell Rudd and saxophonist John Tchicai is one of the most distinctive in improvised music of recent decades. Rudd enjoyed, of course, a similar musical relationship with Steve Lacy, ...
Free Jazz: The Jazz Revolution of the '60s
by Robert Levin
[Editor's note: Revised and expanded here, this piece originated as an oral essay for an installment of the Cosmoetica Omniversica internet radio series on the arts and sciences. The series was hosted by Dan Schneider and Art Durkee.] More or less officially unveiled with the first New York appearance of the Ornette Coleman Quartet ...
Cecil Taylor at the Take 3, 1962-'63
by Robert Levin
[Editor's Note: Excerpted and adapted from a work-in-progress, Going Outside: A Memoir of Free Jazz & the '60s] In the summer of 1962, Cecil lands a three-month, four-night-a-week gig at The Take 3, a coffee house on Bleecker Street. It's right next door to The Bitter End where Woody Allen had performed just ...
Sunny Murray: On Taking the Leap from One Reality to Another
by Robert Levin
[Editor's Note: From a work-in-progress, Going Outside: A Memoir of Free Jazz and the Sixties][Author's Note: Sunny Murray is widely regarded as the preeminent drummer of the free jazz movement. The “Jeanne" mentioned below was Jeanne Phillips. Although there were, to be sure, significant differences--she was black, she worked a forty ...
Muhammad Ali: From a Family of Percussionists
by Clifford Allen
Though not as well known as his brother, drummer Rashied Ali (1935-2009), Muhammad Ali spent the 1970s as one of the busiest drummers in free jazz, primarily working in a cooperative Paris-based quartet with saxophonist Frank Wright, pianist Bobby Few and bassist Alan Silva, and known as the Center of the World Quartet. Born in Philadelphia ...
John Blum: Who Begat Eye
by Martin Longley
Pianist John Blum is a native New Yorker who has been immersed in the city's free improvisation scene for the last 15 years. His work with bassist William Parker and drummer Sunny Murray has had the highest profile and last year's release by this trio, In The Shade Of Sun, appeared on guitarist Thurston Moore's Ecstatic ...
Odean Pope: Odean's List
by Troy Collins
Though best known for his lengthy tenure accompanying legendary drummer Max Roach, Philadelphia-based tenor saxophonist Odean Pope has long demonstrated a flair for writing and arranging that is as impressive as his sideman work. His most arresting compositions have been conceived for his decades-old Saxophone Choir, while smaller-scale projects have featured his improvisational prowess in collaboration ...
Daniel Blacksberg: Bit Heads
by Clifford Allen
It's somewhat surprising that there aren't too many active trombone/bass/drums power trios around, with the model being strongly set in the late 1970s New York scene by such bands as BassDrumBone (trombonist Ray Anderson, drummer Gerry Hemingway, bassist Mark Helias) and the comparable, albeit freer group Brahma, with drummer Barry Altschul. The lack of current 'bone-heavy ...
Allison Miller: Breaking Ground
by Franz A. Matzner
It takes a rare individual to excel in multiple artistic genres, particularly when success unfolds in the public spotlight and presents very different contexts. Certainly technical ability is important, but it also takes a peculiar blend of flexibility, curiosity, and determination. Perhaps that is what makes drummer, composer, bandleader, and outspoken feminist Allison Miller such a ...
Paul F. Murphy: Playing Universally
by Dominic Fragman
Legendary drummer Paul F. Murphy has been involved with the high end of improvised music since the mid-1970s in San Francisco. He is most closely associated with the avant-garde of the '70s, '80s and '90s as a 12-year member of alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons' band and a leader of several of his own groups, including Trio ...
