ARCHIE SHEPP – Three For A Quarter One For A Dime (LP-1969)

Label: Impulse! – AS-9162

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo / Country: US / Released: 1969

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded at the Both/And Club in San Francisco on February 19th, 1966.

Issued in a gatefold sleeve

Design [Cover] – Byron Goto, Henry Epstein

Engineer – Wally Heider

Liner Notes – Nat Hentoff

Producer – Bob Thiele

A - Three For A Quarter ....................................................... 17:27

B - One For A Dime ............................................................. 15:26

Personnel:

ARCHIE SHEPP – tenor sax and piano

ROSWELL RUDD – trombone

LEWIS WORRELL – bass

DONALD GARRETT – bass

BEAVER HARRIS – drums, percussion

Shepp and his regular quintet of 1966, which also includes trombonist Roswell Rudd, drummer Beaver Harris, and bassists Donald Garrett and Lewis Worrell, really stretch out on this live blowout, there is some solo space for his sidemen, but Shepp dominates the performance, and his emotional style and endurance are in peak form. Intense and rewarding music.

Although “Three for a Quarter One for a Dime” was not released until 1969, it was actually recorded in 1966 at the same show that made up the album “Live in San Francisco”.  Only available in the original vinyl format, the 33 minute piece is divided into 17 ½ minutes on side one, and 15 ½ on side two. “This LP is in  the massive gatefold packaging generously supplied by the Impulse! label is a work of art in itself.

Almost any musical genre seems to enjoy its best years when that style is being invented. The excitement of discovery seems to push a musician’s physical limits beyond their usual capabilities. You can hear this in late 20s jazz and early 40s be-bop, and you can also hear it in the ‘free jazz’ of the 60s. Despite all the attention given to Coltrane and Ornette during this freedom era, quite possibly Archie Shepp, along with Albert Alyer and John Gilmore, were the ones who took the emotional frenzy of this music to its highest level, and “Three for a Quarter” provides an excellent example of Shepp doing just that.

This album opens with Shepp and tromobonist Roswell Rudd leap-frogging an odd melody that’s part bop, part circus music and completely ‘out to lunch’, there is no doubt that we are in for a wild ride. As the band digs in, Rudd and Shepp do some quick exchanges before Rudd backs off and gives Shepp the floor. Archie responds with one of the most intense sax solos you will ever hear anywhere, no shrieks or screams, just an endless assault of notes played with a very gnarly expressive guttural sound. Towards the end of side one, Rudd re-enters and the two soloists raise a wonderful chaos that sounds much bigger than just two. On side two, Rudd takes a solo ride while Shepp backs him on the piano before picking up his horn for one more double solo to close things out. Throughout the precedings, Beaver Harris keeps up a steady roar on the trap set while the two bassists rumble around in the background, although not always particularly distinctively.

Archie Shepp is a restless spirit who has played many styles of music in his career, “Three for a Quarter One for a Dime” is an excellent example of how much furious energy he brought to the ‘new thing’ of the sixties before he moved on to other things.

If you find it, buy this album!

THE 360 DEGREE MUSIC EXPERIENCE – In:Sanity (2LP-1976)

Label: Black Saint – BSR 0006/7

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP / Country: Italy / Released: 1976

Style: Contemporary Jazz, Free Jazz

Recorded at Generation Sound Studios in New York City on March 8 & 9, 1976.

Producer By – Giacomo Pellicciotti

Engineer By – Tony May

Photography By – Nina Melis

Cover Art By – Marlo Convertino

Distributor – Northcountry Distributors

A1 - Tradewinds ...................................................................... 6:31

A2 - In:Sanity Suite Part 1: Skull Job ...................................... 6:42

A3 - In:Sanity Suite Part 2: Tm's Top ...................................... 4:25

B  -  In:Sanity Suite Part 3: Complete Operation ................... 18:42

C  -  Open .............................................................................. 21:30

D1 - Full, Deep And Mellow ..................................................... 6:31

D2 - Sahara ............................................................................. 9:15

Beaver Harris — drums, percussion

Dave Burrell — organ, piano, celesta

Azar Lawrence — tenor sax

Keith Marks — flute

Hamiet Bluiett — clarinet, flute, baritone sax

Sunil Garg — sitar

Cecil McBee — bass

Francis Haynes — drums (steel)

Titos Sompa — congas

Steel Ensemble:

Francis Haynes — soprano sax

Roger Sardinha — soprano sax

Coleridge Barbour — alto sax

Alston Jack — tenor sax

Michael Sorzano — tenor sax

Steve Sardinha — bass

Lawrence McCarthy — iron

360 Degree Music Experience: The name of this group says a lot and means that with him, it will be primarily to experiment, and do not impose limits around. And especially not those invited to turn its back on tradition, that on which it was necessary to insist at the time emerged this training, so the idea of inherent struggle to Black Power (then almost always associated with free jazz ) had come to prevail in favor of single cry - anger, revolt - as the only possible aesthetic - no vanguard without a break with the old, it was thought hastily in the public fervent had eventually win free jazz.

On drums, Beaver Harris was first spotted alongside Albert Ayler, as part of a tour set up by the promoter George Wein. At the same poster, black and white, classical musicians and avant-garde: Ayler therefore, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach; but Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz & Gary Burton; or Sarah Vaughan and Willie "The Lion" Smith. Somehow a complete panorama of jazz then, 360 degrees.

A battery, in the 1970s, it was used to hearing in the company of Beaver Harris Archie Shepp. But at the time, Archie Shepp, labeled activist in the sixties, had become the target of former admirers reproaching him for having watered down its message - or at least what they had seen fit to hear behind his game During the previous decade. In the heart of fans of the New Thing, music and politics had eventually merge, sometimes generating debates heavily biased.

What reminds Beaver Harris, and this from the first LP of this self-produced group whose title almost manifesto figure (From Ragtime To No Time) is that free jazz did not emerge from nowhere, and that its pillars were of course able to play "old", and thus to return if necessary - a real guarantee of freedom-won. At Gerard Rouy and Thierry Trombert in Jazz Magazine, Beaver Harris confided: "What is needed is to show young people that the tempo is as important as the vanguard, as important as the off-beat. This ties that said Archie Shepp: Scott Joplin was first avant-garde, as his music seemed strange when you heard it for the first time. This was true for Willie "The Lion" Smith and Duke Ellington. "Later in the same interview, Beaver Harris strikes a strongly worded metaphor:" You can not pick apples or oranges before a seed has been planted and have it left to develop. "This explains that Doc Cheatham and Maxine Sullivan may have been invited by the 360 Degree Music Experience. For indeed, without the first, no Lester Bowie. And in the absence of the second, no Abbey Lincoln.

Originally, the 360 Degree Music Experience was conceived as a cooperative of which were part Dave Burrell, Cecil McBee, Jimmy Garrison, Cameron Brown, Howard Johnson, Hamiet Bluiett, Keith Marks, Bill Willingham and two singular musicians: Francis Haynes (steel drum) and Titos Sompa (congas). One like the other, and the sitar player Sunil Garg, brought unprecedented brilliant colors In:Sanity where the importance of the steel drum is crucial, as rhythmically as melodically speaking. Just listen to "Trademings" to be convinced, beautiful theme signed by Dave Burrell, whose saxophone emerges particularly inspired Azar Lawrence.

In fact, all along, In:Sanity never avoids complex arrangements, nor does would ignore in some long passages free (two whole faces reality), the urgency to play. Because anyway, here, everyone knows decompose rejoice cleverly arranged architectures like coming back - when necessary - to party like original proceedings.

Inaugurating and terminating this double-album, sides A and D are among the most delicately completed free jazz (Beaver Harris was also the Trickles Steve Lacy who possesses these qualities). While the faces B and C, in contrast, are only disproportion to broaden the osmosis between rhythm and harmony, until he dislocated offer wonderfully echoes.

(Text translated from French  -  http://merzbow-derek.tumblr.com/)

If you find it, buy this album!

STEVE LACY / ROSWELL RUDD / KENT CARTER / BEAVER HARRIS – Trickles (LP-1976)

Label: Black Saint – BSR 0008

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1976

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded on March 11 and 14, 1976 at Generation Sound Studios, New York City.

Engineer – Tony May

Painting [Cover Paintings] – Kenneth Noland

Photography By – Nina Melis

Producer – Giocomo Pelliciotti

Steve Lacy / soprano saxophone, composed

Roswell Rudd / trombone, chimes on B2

Kent Carter / bass

Beaver Harris / drums, percussion

... ''For me it was a chance to explore some great music, specifically that of Thelonious Monk. Steve was further down the road, having already released recordings of Monk's music. He even played in Monk's band. So the shared passion for this music became a special focus for us. There was not a week that went by that we didn't rehearse. Steve and I would play regardless of whether bass or drums would show up. This devotion, happening as it did in our early 20s, was to become a fulcrum into the future for us, a permanent musical, even emotional, bond.

The joy of the sound that we got stemming from Monk's high musical intelligence was enough for me. However Steve's vision included more; for him it was also about realizing the commercial potential of this sound. Thankfully there was an entrepreneurial side to him that would serve him abundantly in the years ahead - and many other performers, myself included, would also benefit from this. But here in NYC in the early '60s, that commercial breakthrough never quite happened. For instance, when Steve found a flea-ridden, dark basement beneath Harut's Restaurant in the West Village, I went home, got my hammer, nails and saw. We cleaned up the space and built a platform out of scrap lumber to play on. This was where we first played out in 1961. We passed the hat for six months before moving on to better venues. Finally it was our poet friend Paul Haines who recorded us on a borrowed tape machine in a coffee shop that was released on Emanem Records a few years later as School Days, with Henry Grimes (bass) and Denis Charles (drums). This went through several re-releases in different formats and it has become a favorite collector's item. When Steve pulled up stakes and went to Europe in 1963 he hit the ground running and eventually attracted American musicians residing in Europe as well as European musicians who were drawn into the Monk mystique and Steve's passion for the music. From this point on he would develop the shank of a career spanning the next 40 years. In fact, all and more of the opportunities denied to him in NYC in the early '60s, he would realize in Europe and other parts of the planet, including NYC and America. His musical spirit would produce many remarkable solo performances as well as unique ensembles including his wife, violinist/vocalist Irene Aebi. There is a formidable body of original music that came out of all this.

Thus during the years 1964-2004 I followed his career and although we were living and pursuing whatever we could on two different continents, there were occasional opportunities to touch base or do things together here or in Europe. Over there in 1965 he told me “I'm free now. I'm playing free,” and he was now writing and recording his own material for the first time. In 1976 a little known album called Blown Bone was recorded in NYC, featuring all my compositions. And Trickles (Soul Note) featured music by Steve with Beaver Harris (drums) and Kent Carter (bass). This was actually the first time I played Steve's music. It had a similar deliberate quality to it reminiscent of Monk''...

_ ROSWELL RUDD

If you find it, buy this album!