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.
Ace, late-seventies set, warmly buoyant and inimitably baggy, including Space Is The Place.
Six reeds (including John Gilmore and Marshall Allen), three trumpets (including Michael Ray and Eddie Gale), two trombones (with a young Robin Eubanks), the French horn of Vincent Chancey, guitarist Dale Williams, three bassists, four percussionists, singer June Tyson and of course Ra on keyboards.
Top-notch Messengers, from the same enraged 1961 recording sessions as Freedom Rider.
Six compositions by Wayne Shorter, kicking off with the fierce jazz-dancer Ping Pong.
Bobby Timmons alternates with Walter Davis Jr.
Shepp’s Impulse! debut, co-produced by Coltrane and featuring four of his compositions, arranged for four horns, including Wayne Shorter’s brother Alan, John Tchicai, and the one and only Roswell Rudd.
‘Classic vinyl.’
Many people rate this his best solo album, for murder like Pusherman, Freddie’s Dead and Give Me Your Love (and less persuasively because it trespassed most deeply into rock audiences).
‘This heavy script… I could relate with a lot of it… It allowed me to get past the glitter of the drug scene and go to the depth of it — allowing a little bit of the sparkle and the highlights lyrically, but always with a moral to that.’
Superior Rhino reissue, with die-cut sleeve.
Riveting 1965 review of his own staggering classics like Death Letter and John The Revelator, rinsed by everyone from Captain Beefheart to Jack White.
His ambitious 1974 breakthrough as leader, superbly mixing funk and jazz improvisation on a major-label recording budget, with strong political and spiritual themes, even a nod to the Duke.
Superb organ jazz from 1965, with Grant Green, Bobby Hutcherson and Otis Finch. Latona was the Jazz Dance weapon; One Step Ahead is knockout, too. A classic Blue Note.