BOOKER ERVIN – The Freedom Book (Prestige – PRST 7295 / LP-1964)

Label: Prestige – PR 7295, Prestige – PRST 7295

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo / Country: US / Released: 1964

Style: Hard Bop

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ; December 3, 1963.

Design, Photography By – Don Schlitten

Liner Notes [Jan. 1964] – David A. Himmelstein

Producer By – Don Schlitten

Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder

Matrix / Runout (Side 1 etched): PRST.7295.A

Matrix / Runout (Side 2 etched): PRST.7295.B

side 1

A1 - A Lunar Tune ..................................................................................................... 7:50

A2 - Cry Me Not ........................................................................................................ 4:54

A3 - Grant’s Stand ..................................................................................................... 8:06

side 2

B1 - A Day To Mourn ................................................................................................. 9:35

B2 - Al’s In ................................................................................................................. 9:58

Personnel:

Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone

Jaki Byard – piano

Richard Davis – bass

Al Dawson – drums, percussion

The first of four thematically linked albums, tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin's The Freedom Book is an overlooked classic. The Song Book, The Blues Book and The Space Book were all subsequently recorded in 1964 for Prestige, but this seminal 1963 recording is a masterpiece of unconventional, advanced hard bop.

Less free than the title suggests, the album remains challenging and utterly contemporary. While not as willfully avant-garde as his contemporaries Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman, Ervin (best known as Charles Mingus' primary tenor saxophonist from 1956-1962) traveled the same subtle inside-outside territory as Jackie McLean and Sam Rivers. Equally capable of rich lyricism and electrifying tension, Ervin's distinctively plangent tone undulates with dramatic brio. His pithy timbre and slippery, unpredictable phrasing offers a welcome alternative to the Coltrane and Rollins imitators of the time.

Ervin is joined by visionary pianist Jaki Byard (a fellow veteran of the classic Mingus bands), a musician beyond category. Byard was post-modern before such a term even existed; his style encompasses everything from stride to free jazz.

The rhythm section is rounded out by imaginative bassist Richard Davis and the superlative drummer Alan Dawson (Tony Williams' future teacher). Davis' unique phrasing is coupled with an unconventional melodic sensibility. Dawson's fractured rhythmic attack provides an edgy undercurrent, insinuating time without overstating it. His endlessly modulating ebb and flow complements Davis' ability to stretch the time while maintaining the pulse perfectly.

Rarely has a rhythm section been so in tune with one another. On "Grant's Stand" Byard stretches a wildly oscillating statement into a series of descending arpeggios that Dawson accents as the two plummet, trading phrases before Davis enters, transposing their statements. For a line-up that never officially played out live, this studio group reveals a remarkable level of interaction and interplay, more than most veteran touring ensembles.

The album is dominated by a trio of scorching up-tempo cookers, with "A Lunar Tune" churning out irrepressible locomotive energy. Randy Weston's tender "Cry Me Not" and Ervin's somber dedication to the late President Kennedy, "A Day To Mourn," provide temporary respite.

Re-convening ten months later for the even more exploratory The Space Book (Prestige, 1964), this quartet played at an almost telepathic level. Timeless in its appeal, this edition of The Freedom Book belongs in the album collection of any serious jazz fan.

(Review By Troy Collins, AAJ)

If you find it, buy this album!

ERIC DOLPHY – The Great Concert Of Eric Dolphy, 1961 (P-34002 / 3LP-1974)

Label: Prestige ‎– P-34002

Format: 3 × Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Remastered

This Box Set includes an insert, triple gatefold / Country: US / Released: 1974

Style: Free Jazz, Modal, Free Improvisation

Recorded live at the Five Spot Cafe, New York City, 16 July 1961.

Art Direction, Photography By [Cover Photo] – Tony Lane

Engineer [Original Recording Engineer] – Rudy Van Gelder

Remastered At – Fantasy Studios / By – Brian Gardner

Liner Notes – Joe Goldberg, Ira Gitler, Robert Levin

Supervised By [Original Recording] – Esmond Edwards

Sides 1 / 2 originally released as "Live At the Five Spot Volume 1" (P/NJ-8260)

Sides 3 / 4 originally released as "Live At the Five Spot Volume 2" (P/NJ-8288)

Sides 5 / 6 originally released as "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Album" (P-7334)

Matrix / Runout (Label Side A): P-34002-A

Matrix / Runout (Label Side B): P-34002-B

Matrix / Runout (Label Side C): P-34002-C

Matrix / Runout (Label Side D): P-34002-D

Matrix / Runout (Label Side E): P-34002-E

Matrix / Runout  (Label Side F): P-34002-F

Disributed by Fantasy Records, Tenth and Parker, Berkeley, Ca. 94710

side 1:

    A1 - Fire Waltz  (M. Waldron) ............................................................................. 13:10

    A2 - Bee Vamp  (B. Little) ................................................................................... 12:11

side 2:

     B  -  The Prophet  (E. Dolphy ............................................................................ 21:06

side 3:

     C  -  Aggression  (B. Little) ................................................................................ 16:35

side 4:

     D  -  Like Someone In Love  (J. Van Heusen-J. Burke) .................................... 19:29

side 5:

     E  -  Number Eight / Lotsa Potsa  (E. Dolphy) ................................................... 15:25

side 6:

     F  -  Booker's Waltz  (E.Dolphy) ........................................................................ 14:30

Personnel:

Eric Dolphy – alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet

Booker Little – trumpet

Mal Waldron – piano

Richard Davis – bass

Eddie Blackwell – drums, percussion

ERIC DOLPHY / The Great Concert Of Eric Dolphy (1974. US, 7-tracks, triple LP box set with insert, repackaging the albums 'Live At The Five Spot' & the 'Eric Dolphy Memorial Album', all recorded live on July 16th 1961 in New York, engineer – Rudy Van Gelder.

© 1974 Prestige Records / Printed in U.S.A.

After having left the ensemble of Charles Mingus and upon working with John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy formed a short-lived but potent quintet with trumpeter Booker Little, who would pass away three months after this recording. Despite all of the obstacles and subsequent tragedy, this quintet became legendary over the years -- justifiably so -- and developed into a role model for all progressive jazz combos to come. The combined power of Dolphy and Little -- exploring overt but in retrospect not excessive dissonance and atonality -- made them a target for critics but admired among the burgeoning progressive post-bop scene. With the always stunning shadings of pianist Mal Waldron, the classical-cum-daring bass playing of Richard Davis, and the colorful drumming of alchemistic Ed Blackwell, there was no stopping this group. Live at the legendary Five Spot Café in New York City, this band set the Apple, and the entire jazz world on their collective ears. "Fire Waltz" demonstrates perfectly how the bonfire burns from inside the soul of these five brilliant provocateurs, as Dolphy's sour alto and Little's dour trumpet signify their new thing. Dolphy's solo is positively furious, while Blackwell nimbly switches up sounds within the steady 3/4 beat. "Bee Vamp" does not buzz so much as it roars in hard bop trim. A heavy tandem line breaks and separates in the horn parts like booster rockets. Blackwell is even more amazing, and Dolphy's ribald bass clarinet set standards that still influences players of the instrument. Where "The Prophet" is a puckery blues, it is also open armed with minor phrasings and stretched harmonics. This is where Waldron and Davis shine in their terra cotta facades of roughly hewn accompaniments to Dolphy and Little's bold flavored statements.

A Group also shows a compositional thrust in very dissonant thematic material really stretching out during long versions of Little's "Aggression" and the standard "Like Someone in Love." Dolphy's playing -- whether on alto, bass clarinet, or flute -- always defied categorization, while Little was the first new voice on the trumpet to emerge after Clifford Brown's death in 1956.

The vast majority welcomes this incredible concert, as music that changed the jazz world as much as Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane's innovative excursions of the same era. All forward thinking and challenged listeners need to own these epic club dates.

(Review by Michael G. Nastos)

I love to pull this one out when I’ve got the house to myself and a few hours with nothing much to do, and that’s today. It was originally released as three separate albums (Live at the Five Spot Vol. 1 and 2, and Eric Dolphy Memorial Album), and then Prestige put out this version in the 70s. It unfortunately leaves out a wonderful version of “God Bless The Child” that was also played at this show, which is available elsewhere. Regardless, if you stumble across this 3LPs, it is well worth picking up – it’s a remarkable piece of jazz history and tremendously enjoyable. An excellent set that records what may have been Dolphy's finest group ever, as well as one of that era's best working bands.

E n j o y !!!

If you find it, buy this album!

SAM RIVERS – The Live Trio Sessions (2LP-1978)

Label: Impulse! – IA-9352/2

Series: The Dedication Series – Vol. XII

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP / Country: US / Released: 1978

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Liner Notes – Robert Palmer

Mixed By – Al Schmitt Jr. (tracks: A, B), Baker Bigsby (tracks: C1 to D2), Ed Michel (tracks: C1 to D2), Michael Cuscuna (tracks: A, B)

Producer – Ed Michel

Design by – Vartan/Rod Dyer Inc.

Photography by – Charles Stewaet

A  -  Hues Of Melanin - Part One (Soprano Saxophone Section) ................................. 15:30

B  -  Hues Of Melanin - Part Two (Flute And Vocal Section) ........................................ 18:47

C1 - Hues Of Melanin - Part Three (Ivory Black - The Piano Section) ........................... 4:13

C2 - Hues Of Melanin - Part Four (Violet - The Tenor Saxophone Section) .................. 5:38

C3 - Encore ..................................................................................................................... 3:05

C4 - Mauve ..................................................................................................................... 4:17

C5 - Indigo ...................................................................................................................... 1:28

D1 - Suite For Molde - Part One ..................................................................................... 8:06

         a. Onyx - The Soprano Saxophone Section

         b. Topaz - The Flute Section

D2 - Suite For Molde - Part Two (The Tenor Saxophone Section) ............................... 11:27

Tracks A-C2 recorded live on November 10, 1973 at the Battel Chapel, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Track C3 recorded live on July 6, 1973 at The Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland.

Tracks C4, C5 recorded live on October 27, 1972 at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan.

Tracks D1-D2 recorded live on August 3, 1973, at the Molde Jazz Festival, Molde, Norway.

Sam Rivers – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute, piano, vocals

Cecil McBee (tracks: A1 to C3) – bass

Richard Davis (tracks: C4, C5) – bass

Arild Andersen (tracks: D1, D2) – bass

Barry Altschul (tracks: A1 to C2, D1, D2) – drums, percussion

Norman Connors (tracks: C3) – drums, percussion

Warren Smith (tracks: C4, C5) – drums, percussion

Recorded live at concerts in Molde, Norway, Yale University, the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival and at Rochester, Michigan, this long-out-of-print double LP has all of Sam Rivers' recordings from the 1972-73 period. The music "Hues of Melanin" (here divided into four parts) lasts 47 minutes. In addition to three much briefer pieces, the two-part "Suite for Molde" is over 19 minutes long. On these numbers Rivers is joined by either Cecil McBee, Richard Davis or Arlid Anderson on bass and Barry Altschul, Norman Connors or Warren Smith on drums. There is surprisingly little tenor playing from Rivers during the performances (including just 5½ minutes of "Hues of Melanin"); he does stretch out more on soprano, flute, piano and even a little eccentric vocalizing. The passionate music is quite adventurous and outside, as close as Rivers came to free jazz. Excellent, but definitely not for all tastes.

_ Review by Scott Yanow

Excerpt from the Liner Notes by Robert Palmer:

...this is a part of the ambitious program Backer and Michel effected during their Impulse tenure. The exceptions are „Onyx“ and „Topaz“, recorded at the Molde Festival in Norway; and „Ivory Black“ and „Violet“, recorded at Yale. These performances were included in „Hues“, an Impulse album of short excerpts from long trio performances, while most of the rest of the present album was scattered over „The Saxophone, Impulse! Artists on Tour, No Energy Crisis“ and „The Drums“. Michael Cuscuna has gone back and restored the integrity of the original sessions, so that the remarkable „Hues of Melanin“ from Yale, with the rhythm section of Cecil McBee and Barry Altschul that Rivers prefers today, and the „Suite for Molde“ are heard complete for the first time.

Rivers may have begun the Yale and Molde performances with an empty stage, but the stage did not remain empty for long, for these are remarkably rich and cohesive examples of group improvisation. Like any discipline that is practiced long enough, Rivers's trio performances have developed their own conventions–the uptempo and midtempo swing sections, the vaguely Eastern sounding drone sections, and so on–but it's remarkable how little convention and how many new sound and new ideas are present here. One could point to the overwhelming momentum of the Yale concert or to the alchemy that occurs between Rivers's flute and Arild Andersen's bowed bass on the second part of „Suite for Molde“ as particular highlights, but in fact, everything here is exceptional. And since Rivers has really recorded very little of his free-form trio music–most of his later trio dates, such as the brilliant „The Quest“ with Holland and Altschul, bring compositional elements into play–the addition of this album to his discography is particulary welcome...

...Rivers's feelings about this music make the album doubly welcome. „Trio performances are the only thing I like to leave completely free“, he said in 1974. „That's really my style of playing, and I've been doing it long enough to be very conscious of developing forms. I start to build into some kind of form and set it up so that there's a rise and fall throughout. I didn't really feel that „Streams“ was one of my best trio performances. I flew over to make the gig in Montreux, and it was kind of hectic. The selections which they put on „No Energy Crisis“ and „Impulse! Artists on Tour“ [these were excerpts from the Yale and Molde concerts] „were better performances; they showed more emotion than „Streams“.“

That should tell you something about the way Rivers evaluates his own music. „Streams“ is a marvel of inventiveness and stamina but it is, perhaps, a little icy. Rivers at his best, as he was at Yale and Molde, is warm and expressive as well as technically formidable. In the end, both these attributes are equally important. „You can't survive in his business on just your intuitive thing“, he said when I interviewed him again in1978. „You can come out here and be an intuitive musician and be really happening, but your dreams and visions won't last forever. If you don't get into the books and get this technical thing together while your intuitive thing is happening, it's over.“ Rivers's great strength is that he has so much of both, the technical and the intuitive. He isn't in the music for one short, apocalyptic instant, he's in it for the long haul. His work, which he considers American classical music, is intended to last, and it's fortunate that these performances, restored to their original length, are going to last along with the rest of his recordings.

Enjoy!

If you find it, buy this album!

ANDREW HILL (Sextet) – Point Of Departure (LP-1964)

Label: Blue Note – BLP 4167

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album  / Country: US / Released: 1964

Style: Post Bop, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, March 21, 1964.

Design [Cover], Photography By [Cover Photo] – Reid Miles

Liner Notes – Nat Hentoff

Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder

A1 - Refuge . . . . . . . . . . 12:18

A2 - New Monastery . . . . . . . . . . 7:05

B1 - Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . 9:48

B2 - Flight 19 . . . . . . . . . . 4:15

B3 - Dedication . . . . . . . . . . 6:45

Andrew Hill – piano, composed

Eric Dolphy – alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet

Joe Henderson – tenor saxophone

Kenny Dorham – trumpet

Richard Davis – double bass

Anthony Williams – drums, percussion

Pianist and composer Andrew Hill is perhaps known more for this date than any other in his catalogue -- and with good reason. Hill's complex compositions straddled many lines in the early to mid-1960s and crossed over many. Point of Departure, with its all-star lineup (even then), took jazz and wrote a new book on it, excluding nothing. With Eric Dolphy and Joe Henderson on saxophones (Dolphy also played clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute), Richard Davis on bass, Tony Williams on drums, and Kenny Dorham on trumpet, this was a cast created for a jazz fire dance. From the opening moments of "Refuge," with its complex minor mode intro that moves headlong via Hill's large, open chords that flat sevenths, ninths, and even 11ths in their striding to move through the mode, into a wellspring of angular hard bop and minor-key blues. Hill's solo is first and it cooks along in the upper middle register, almost all right hand ministrations, creating with his left a virtual counterpoint for Davis and a skittering wash of notes for Williams. The horn solos in are all from the hard bop book, but Dolphy cuts his close to the bone with an edgy tone. "New Monastery," which some mistake for an avant-garde tune, is actually a rewrite of bop minimalism extended by a diminished minor mode and an intervallic sequence that, while clipped, moves very quickly. Dorham solos to connect the dots of the knotty frontline melody and, in his wake, leaves the space open for Dolphy, who blows edgy, blue, and true into the center, as Hill jumps to create a maelstrom by vamping with augmented and suspended chords. Hill chills it out with gorgeous legato phrasing and a left-hand ostinato that cuts through the murk in the harmony. When Henderson takes his break, he just glides into the chromatically elegant space created by Hill, and it's suddenly a new tune. This LP is full of moments like this. In Hill's compositional world, everything is up for grabs. It just has to be taken a piece at a time, and not by leaving your fingerprints all over everything. In "Dedication," where he takes the piano solo further out melodically than on the rest of the album combined, he does so gradually. You cannot remember his starting point, only that there has been a transformation. This is a stellar date, essential for any representative jazz collection, and a record that, in the 21st century, still points the way to the future for jazz.

_ Review by Thom Jurek

In 1964, the term avant-garde could have been applied to any number of different musical angles in jazz. The free experiments of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, with their pure emotional howling set within very limited contextual framework, are perhaps the most notorious. But there was another avenue that retained a significant structural environment with greater emphasis on composition,even if those compositions were themselves quite a stretch. Hill's third recording as a leader, the diabolically brilliant Point of Departure, may be the apex of this school.

This album includes some of the fiercest, high density writing of the era, with each track featuring tight, byzantine written statements and full-throated blending of timbres. The music includes dissonant harmonies, often employing multiple melodic ideas, and often played very fast. It would be easy to imagine the musicians scratching their heads on the first run through, struggling with music that reached for new levels of complexity. Nevertheless, and despite the very complicated, wrought compositions, the band plays rather loosely. They're all there, but a perfect precision performance does not appear to have been Hill's core demand. Instead, people come in and out slightly ahead or behind the beats, and even when they're harmonizing, cacophonous filigrees abound.

On top of all that—and that's already a lot—Point of Departure features extraordinary improvising. Eric Dolphy—on alto sax, flute and his trademark bass clarinet—pursues pathways that make perfect sense within the music, but still sound like they've arrived from another planet. Joe Henderson's tenor work is right out there with Dolphy, and Kenny Dorham's trumpet adds a bright brass blare over all of it. Hill's piano is all over the map, and he plays the way he writes: inventive, unpredictable, and fearless. Notably, although the improvising is very aggressive and forward-looking, everyone still keeps his statements within the context of the music. Nothing on this record ever veers off into free territory...

A musical masterpiece.

(_ By Greg Simmons)

If you find it, buy this album!

JOEL FUTTERMAN QUARTET – Vision In Time (1988)

Label: Silkheart – SHCD 125
Format: CD, Album; Country: Sweden - Released: Sep. 05, 1994
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
"Vision In Time" album by Joel Futterman Quartet with Joseph Jarman, recording date 1988.
Linear Notes by William Tandy Young, November 8, 1989
Re-Design by ART&JAZZ Studio

Note:

"He exists in the present moment, which allows his musical expression to speak in reflective tones conveying the numerous sensations he is experiencing from the coalition."
_ Frank Rubolino, Cadence Magazine and One Final Note

Pianist Joel Futterman is recognized internationally as one of the foremost pioneers in the musical genre of free jazz and collective improvisation. A native of Chicago, Illinois, Futterman resides now in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He began studying classical piano at an early age and grew up playing bebop in Chicago's after hour jazz clubs as a teenager. Joel quickly migrated to freer and less structured forms of musical expression. He owes a musical debt to such innovators as John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Eric Dolphy. However, he stamps his own unique personality to his music by combining adventurous voicings, impassioned energy, and spectacular technique. His masterful technique is the product of a practice regiment of 8-10 hours a day on the piano. But for Joel, technique is invisible. It is only the means for total expression unencumbered by physical limitations.
Describing his approach to improvising, Futterman has said he anticipates only one or two phrases ahead of what is he is playing---the third phrase becomes clear only as he begins his second phrase. His improvisations unfold unpredictably, yet are guided by a strong sense of purpose and coherence. His piano style relies on his uniquely developed technique of rapid overlays and looping hand cross-over techniques such that a first time listener to his recordings might think that multi-track recording was used. In recent years, he has introduced a new dimension to his music when he leaves the piano to pick up the curved soprano saxophone or Indian wooden flute.
Joel has performed around the world with many jazz greats including Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jimmy Lyons, Joseph Jarman, Richard Davis, Edward "Kidd" Jordan, William Parker, Hal Russell, Fred Anderson, and several other noted jazz artists. He has amassed a discography of over 40 recordings.

"Of all the forms of expression, music can enter most deeply into the whole being, the emotions, memory, and the intellect as it connects with feelings and desires. Of course, for this to happen the musician must be in full communication with himself. That is apparent in listening to Joel perform."
_ Nat Hentoff

"Total mastery of the piano…"  _ Paul Niles, Jazzbeat Magazine



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