The singer’s 1969 debut under his own name — after a stint in Pharoah Sanders’ group — is his best album.
A beautiful, succinct version of Master Plan, a lovely Song For My Father, an angry Damn Nam. Malcolm’s Gone is a forgotten classic: intensely spiritual eastern sounds, with Pharoah Sanders at his most focussed.
Cecil McBee, James Spaulding, Roy Haynes, Lonnie Liston Smith, Richard Davis…
The CD offers three bonus tracks, including A Night In Tunisia, and a live version of Damn Nam (Ain’t Goin’ To Vietnam).
HIQLP and BGPCD from Ace.
Surely the definitive reissue of this Detroit jazz classic.
It’s the recording of a live performance in 1970; a deeply entertaining, hard-nosed quick-fire of forward-looking takes on soul jazz, post-bop, modal, and out-there. The great drummer is in pumped, scintillating form; keen to lay out his virtuosic brilliance. Woody Shaw, George Coleman, Hugh Lawson, and Cecil McBee… the band is blazing.
Re-mastered using the original master-tapes; 180g vinyl; Stoughton tip-on sleeves; an insert with new notes and rare photographs.
The Head To The Sky set especially is a must-have. Zanzibar does it every time.
One of their best, most diverse LPs: gritty soul, country hillbilly, raucous funk — the classic Nothing Before Me But Thang — and bagpipes galore on The Silent Boatman.
A moody, ambitious, intriguing record, originally released by Audio Fidelity in 1964.
Just two side-long tracks — and an amazing lineup, with Walter Davis on piano, bassist George Tucker, and two drummers together, Edgar Bateman and the great Andrew Cyrille.
The sleeve-notes quote a Downbeat article from the same year, claiming that Dickerson was the most important vibraphonist since Milt Jackson: ‘instead of solos made up of one related note following another, Dickerson often builds areas of sound, placing them one on the other, creating a total effect.’