80s Snares

Recorded in 1985 after a break from recording and time spent living in Barbados and Liberia, Nina’s Back features a rejuvenated Nina Simone reaching out to a wider musical audience. Featuring a number of memorable Simone compositions, the band includes horns and backup singers for a unique recording in Nina’s catalog.

George Adams & Don Pullen - Live at Village Vanguard (1983) {Soul Note 121094-2}
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© 1985 Soul Note | 121094-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz / Saxophone / Piano

Recorded in August 1983, hard on the heels of the Timeless album City Gates, Live at the Village Vanguard finds four extraordinary musicians at the peak of their careers. George Adams (only featured on tenor saxophone here, though his flute playing and singing were essential elements of his live performance) is in superb form throughout, from the hard-swinging bop of "Intentions" to the sensuous balladry of "Solitude," and his pianist and long-term playing partner, Don Pullen (the two men formed the nucleus of Charles Mingus' great 1970s quintet, heard at its best on the two classic Changes albums), provides ample evidence of the prodigious technique that allowed him to move effortlessly from crisp bop stylings to free-form freakout without skipping a beat.

Back in 1985, drummer Alvin Queen put together a band of American musicians to record Jammin' Uptown for his Nilva Records label. Queen, who was living in Europe, visited the United States to play live concerts and to record. This band reflected his vision as he brought together young musicians Terence Blanchard (trumpet) and Robin Eubanks (trombone) along with veterans John Hicks (piano) and Manny Boyd (tenor, alto and soprano sax) with Ray Drummond (bass) as the bridge. All of the music here is original, with contributions from Blanchard, Boyd, Eubanks, Hicks and Queen. Queen's singular composition is the previously unreleased "Hear Me Drummin," which was recorded in 2001 at the BP Jazz Club in Zagreb.

ndian percussionist Trilok Gurtu, the son of vocalist Shobha Gurtu, who had played with Don Cherry (1976), with Oregon (1984) and with John McLaughlin (1989), perfected a technique that draws equally from Indian tabla and dhol drums, from jazz music (cymbals, hi-hats) and from other ethnic cultures (gongs, congas, cowbells, snares). He even dipped resonating instruments in buckets of water to produce sounds that he could not produce with traditional instruments. He began his mission with the intense mixture of Indian music, jazz-rock and world-music of the CD Usfret (1988), featuring the likes of trumpeter Don Cherry, guitarist Ralph Towner, Indian violinist Lakshminarayana Shankar, Swedish bassist Jonas Hellborg, French keyboardist Daniel Goyone and his own mother, vocalist Shobha.