‘First issued in 1985 by Hal Willner’s Shemp label. With its unconventional lineup featuring steel drums, Latin percussion, and French horns, along with the co-leaders’ drum-kit and piano, it is among the most wonderful outings of its decade. Pullen was in top form, his inside-outside approach to the keyboard perhaps optimally heard on the exuberant Double Arc Jake, where the bright melody suddenly breaks into pieces, snapping back into miraculous shape. The band includes Hamiet Bluiett on baritone saxophone and Ricky Ford on tenor saxophone, along with Buster Williams on bass, Francis Hayes on steel pans, and a special brass section led by Sharon Freeman on the seventeen-minute Goree.’

The first time out for this near-mythical recording by the co-founder of the Tribe label.
Funky, spiritual jazz, with Phil Ranelin, Harold McKinney, Kareem Harris and the crew, in 1975.
Decent booklet, too, with a history of the label, and never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from its mid-1970s heyday.

The story goes that Giant Steps is indebted to the harmonic ideas of Hasaan, with whom Coltrane practised intensively in the early fifties; also Trane’s so-called ‘sheets of sound’. Certainly the pianist was already hallowed on the Philadelphia jazz scene by the time of the 1964 Atlantic LP entitled The Max Roach Featuring The Legendary Hasaan.
The recordings presented here are from the follow-up session, the next year, with Odean Pope, Art Davis and Kalil Madi. Atlantic shelved them when Hasaan was jailed for narcotics possession straight afterwards; and till recently they were thought lost, despite the keen interest of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, amongst others.
Hasaan plays with a quietly raging restlessness, deeply passionate and rawly personal, climbing the walls of the influences of Monk and Elmo Hope, and churning over the full range of swing and bop traditions, with sharp turns in all directions. You can hear him breaking through the ‘modern sounds’, as Benny Golson put it, ‘into something very esoteric. I guess you could say his brakes didn’t work. He was quite a character.’ ‘Almost avant-garde,’ for Philly Joe Jones, ‘but correct’.
Saxophonist Odean Pope played for two decades with Max Roach. He was a member of Catalyst; he started his own Saxophone Choir. At 26, on his recording debut, he’s magnificent here. Art Davis is the bass player on stone classics like Africa/Brass and Olé, Ready For Freddie and Inception, Max Roach’s Deeds, Not Words and Pharoah Sanders’ Rejoice. In the previous decade in New York, Kalil Madi had drummed for the likes of Billie Holiday, Jackie Paris and Mongo Santamaria; later he worked with Gene Harris’ Three Sounds and Charles Gayle.
Elegantly presented, expertly restored, this is wonderful music, a genuine jazz holy grail.
It’s a must, hotly recommended.

With a freshness, simplicity and directness missing from his estimable later work, this 1977 inauguration of Fourth World still retains its magic. Microtonality and the other lessons of his three years with Pandit Pran Nath articulate a blend of electric-era Miles, Terry Riley and raga, featuring processed trumpet over a bed of mbira, talking drum, kanjul and tabla, and recordings of the sea, barking dogs, tropical birds and night creatures. From Don Cherry’s imminent, like-minded Codona project, Nana Vasconcelos is in full effect.

180g.

Highly entertaining, varied session for New Jazz in 1963 — the same year as Cracklin’ — with Frank Strozier (playing saxophone and flute), Larry Ridley and Ronnie Matthews. The tricky, careering opener Modette is terrific.

The recording of a performance at Studio 104, Maison de la Radio, recycling One for Juan from Jimmy Heath’s Love And Understanding LP for Muse, and Watergate Blues and Smilin’ Billy, both from the Bros’ recent Marchin’ On LP.

‘That was the first Heath Brothers album. Stanley Cowell had started the Strata-East label with Charles Tolliver, and they engaged us to do a record. It was a family affair, and we adopted Stanley because we thought he was amazing. That was a different type of record for us. We recorded it while we were on tour in Oslo, Norway. We used to get on the train and travel around Europe, and we’d be playing in these cabins on the train. Percy played a bass with a cello body that Ray Brown created, Tootie and I played flutes, and Stanley played a chromatic African thumb piano. People would stop and listen to us on these trains going from one country to the next, and it was something that they liked. It was like a chamber-music group. So we decided to include that sound on the record.’

The version of Smilin’ Billy is a show-stopper.

Our Thing, In ‘N Out, Inner Urge, The State Of The Tenor Volumes 1 & 2.