Alan Shorter

The energy and reliability of these performances are exemplary. The F sharp Suite is beset with all sorts of problems but they are not revealed here. The F minor Suite has splendid fugue and, as I have said before, couldn't Handel write a good fugue untrammelled by academia which sometimes the fugues of the great J.S. Bach may be.

With his second album, Alan Sorrenti reached the most complex and brutal vocal experiment in all his career. The album's structure is similar to the previous Aria, a little bit extended being over 46 minutes of music and divided between the whole side's self titled epic (side two - 23 min.) and shorter and simpler songs.
For the recording sessions of the album he went to London and was helped by other famous guest musicians as Van der Graaf Generator sax hero David Jackson, who played flute and by Curved Air's member Francis Monkman on synthesizer, piano and electric guitar. Differently from Aria, his voice appears more nervous and complicated passing through stronger dissonances and unusual noises and strange sounds…

Marion Brown Septet - Juba-Lee (1966) {Fontana Japan PHCE-1007 rel 1990}
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© 1966, 1990 Fontana Japan | PHCE-1007
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Saxophone

Recorded only a month before his classic Impulse debut, Three for Shepp, this much overlooked session, though quite different, is more than reputable in its own right. The reason for its obscurity is pretty simple. Juba-Lee, as of May 2003, had yet to see formal release anywhere in the world other than its original Dutch pressing and subsequent reissues in Japan. Otherwise, it bears a good deal of resemblance to his Marion Brown Quartet date on ESP, so listeners familiar with that session should know what to expect here. Among other reasons, this is because both sessions share the talents of Alan Shorter and bassist, Reggie Johnson. Also on hand were tenor man Bennie Maupin, pianist Dave Burrell, drummer Beaver Harris, and trombonist Grachan Moncur III.

Marion Brown - Marion Brown Quartet (1965) {ESP-Disk' ESP 1022-2 rel 2002}
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© 1965, 2002 Syndicope / ESP-Disk' / ZYX Music | ESP 1022-2
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Saxophone

This 1965 release was saxophonist Marion Brown's debut recording as a leader. There are three tracks here, two of which go on for some time. As was the case with most of ESP's releases from the period, this is a free jazz blowing date. There are two bassists on the program, Ronnie Boykins and Reggie Johnson, along with John Coltrane's future drummer Rashied Ali, and Brown playing with either trumpeter Alan Shorter or saxophonist Bennie Maupin.

From 1964, Archie Shepp's first date as a leader featured – as one would expect from the title – four tunes by John Coltrane, his mentor, his major influence, and his bandleader. The fact that this album holds up better than almost any of Shepp's records nearly 40 years after the fact has plenty to do with the band he chose for this session, and everything to do with the arranging skills of trombonist Roswell Rudd. The band here is Shepp on tenor, John Tchicai on alto, Rudd on trombone, Trane's bassist Reggie Workman, and Ornette Coleman's drummer Charles Moffett. Even in 1964, this was a powerhouse, beginning with a bluesed-out wailing version of "Syeeda's Song Flute." This version is ingenious, with Shepp allowing Rudd to arrange for solos for himself and Tchicai up front and Rudd punching in the blues and gospel in the middle, before giving way to double time by Workman and Moffett. The rawness of the whole thing is so down-home you're ready to tell someone to pass the butter beans when listening.

If ever there were a recording that should be played in small doses, it's this one! Alan Hovhaness' serene, metaphysical, meditative music can send you into a near trance-state or, depending on the work, into a rage. Working with the principles of oriental art and mysticism, Hovhaness creates musical cells of exquisite beauty and then, coming from that same paradigm, repeats them seemingly endlessly.