An amazing collection of music – some of the hippest jazz to ever come out of the west coast scene, and a legendary pairing of trumpeter Bobby Bradford and saxophonist John Carter! Both players have really gone onto leave their mark in later years – but honestly, they almost reached the peak of their powers with these incredible early recordings – beautifully bracing modern jazz, of a sort that somewhat follows an Ornette Coleman lineage, but which also opens up into the new spirituality that was hitting the LA scene in the post-Coltrane years – almost a bridge between the Coleman/Dolphy generation, and the later Nimbus scene that would rise in the west! The music here is stark, simple, and quite organic – yet has an energy that's all its own – an amazing progression of rhythms and horn sounds, wrapped together beautifully through a killer set of original compositions.
The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records is a four-disc set, compiled and annotated by author Ashley Kahn who wrote the book of the same name being published concurrently with its release. Impulse's great run was between 1961 and 1976 – a period of 15 years that ushered in more changes in jazz than at any other point in the music's history. Impulse began recording in the last weeks of 1960, with Ray Charles, Kai Windig /J.J. Johnson, and Gil Evans. While Impulse experimented with 45s 33 1/3 EPs, cassettes, and reel to reel tapes later in its existence, it was–and this set focuses on– it was the music on its LPs (with distinct orange and black packaging in gatefold sleeves containing copious notes) that helped to set them apart.