breath of life (Free subscription) | 01/11/2010
We start off in Jamaica with Toots & the Maytals, seminal progenitors of roots reggae, and then head back to New York to catch up with Talib Kweli and his Re:Union Mixtape. We close the week with 12 versions of Oliver Nelson's great composition "Stolen Moments" featuring Carmen McRae/Betty Carter, Ahmad Jamal, Anna Luna, Kenny [...]
JamsBio (Free subscription) | 06/30/2009
Few years were as successful for jazz as 1959, at least when you're counting up five star recordings. Columbia Records has recently reissued three of these, Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um , Davis's Sketches of Spain , and Dave Brubeck's Time Out , in deluxe two CD packages.
The Independent (Free subscription) | 04/19/2009
A first CD release for this relatively obscure 1961 hard-bop session.
wordsandmusic (Free subscription) | 01/20/2009
Bookends – Booker Little, with Booker Ervin beside him in the frontline on a 1960 session, originally issued under the leadership of Teddy Charles. Recorded at the Museum of Modern Art, some fiery blowing here. The track: 'Scoochie.' Ushered in by a sharp burst of drums from Eddie Shaughnessy, who drives the band on throughout. Booker Little takes the first solo, twisting a sure-footed elegance...
wordsandmusic (Free subscription) | 01/02/2009
Slowly getting back into the field... I promised to re-up this a week or more ago. The Clusone Trio, playing '117th Street.' (7 beyond 110th up into Harlem'). Anyway, no point re-writing, at the time I said: 'The Clusone Trio give the Herbie Nichols tune, '117th Street,' an outing. Always an element of drollery lurking when Bennink is involved – those crazy Dutch, eh? This swings in lightly over...
wordsandmusic (Free subscription) | 07/02/2008
I promised a commenter some more Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell – so here's the man giving out 'Blue Day Blues.' He really is one of the missing links between twenties country blues and later urban styles – introducing more linearity via the single-string breaks, for example. No mean singer either... From his 1967 album 'Blackjack,' this is Donald Byrd heading up a septet on 'Pentatonic.'...
Bagatellen (Free subscription) | 03/17/2008
In both title and content, this 1966 album for Pacific Jazz is reflective of Booker Ervin�s track record in reliability. The tenor saxophonist never cut a shoddy record by my reckoning, and this lesser heralded session is actually one...
BLUES TOWN (The City Of Blues) (Free subscription) | 03/11/2008
Opening with Ellington's "Take the Coltrane," David "Fathead" Newman's late-1999 Chillin' brims with his band's talents and his own pressed, soulful tone. Newman shares geographical origins with fellow Texan saxophonists like James Clay, Booker Ervin, Illinois Jacquet, and Herschel Evans, with shades of each present in Chillin'. Also present, very frontally in the audio mix, is...
LP Cover Lover (Free subscription) | 02/09/2008
“Hip Cake Walk” Don Patterson (Organ) with Booker Ervin (Tenor Sax). Prestige Records. (1964) Funky organ jazz originals by Patterson including the title cut, “Sister Ruth” and”Donald Duck.” Also covers of Earl Hine’s “Rosetta” and the Drifters’ “Under the Boardwalk.” Alto saxophonist Leonard Houston and drummer Billy James join...
Bagatellen (Free subscription) | 01/30/2008
Boxholder 054 Though pianist Bobby Few came to notoriety as part of the Frank Wright Quartet and Steve Lacy�s ensembles in the 1970s and 80s, respectively, and worked with saxophonists as diverse as Booker Ervin, Albert Ayler and Marzette...
wordsandmusic (Free subscription) | 01/25/2008
Continuing apologies for lack of blog presence... lingering illness (cough bloody cough) and another project that I am way behind on (the CD/Download label) have taken my time... so here are three tracks to re-start the fandango... Holding the bop line in 1957... on the West Coast... Curtis Counce , another who went too young (died in 1963), a respected bass player around and about, formed his group...
Bagatellen (Free subscription) | 01/08/2008
Delmark 579 In an ever-constricting small venue economy, long standing residencies for working jazz ensembles continue to dwindle. It�s a sobering state of affairs not lost on Sabertooth, whose own name echoes that of a long extinct beast. Thus...
wordsandmusic (Free subscription) | 12/25/2007
And now it's Christmas Day... Another mix... 1.Prince Far I – Heavy manners 2.Burning Star Core – This moon will be your grave 3.Sidney Bechet – Blues in thirds 4.Miles Davis – Jeru 5.Arcana – Derek Bailey/Bill Laswell/Tony Williams – Tears of astral rain 6.Howling Wolf – How many more years 7.Fugazi – Repeater 8.Jackson C. Frank -Yonder come the blues...
LP Cover Lover (Free subscription) | 12/10/2007
“The Freedom Book” Booker Ervin Prestige Records 1963 Booker Ervin, tenor sax; Jaki Byard, piano; Richard Davis, bass; Alan Dawson, drums Track List: A Lunar Tune, Cry Me Not (by Randy Weston), Grant's Stand, A Day to Mourn, Al's In. Rudy Van Gelder produced. Booker Ervin was an artist who bridged the gap in post-bop 1960s between straight ahead [...]
wordsandmusic (Free subscription) | 09/14/2007
Internet service has finally been restored... But other complications – my rackety health mainly... So a quick post – but hoping to get back to some regularity soon. I keep saying this – hi ho. The toll of blogging for some time now. But the taste for it is still there... Honest... There is always a sprawling, unruly joy to Mingus's music.... This is 'No Private Income Blues' from...
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