Carn Doug,

Doug's newest project, his entry in the Jazz Is Dead album series helmed by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, takes his unique and timeless art and places it within the context of a musical culture that has always taken cues from his 70s classics. There's no mistaking the musical mind that created legendary albums like Infant Eyes and Adam's Apple, but the encounter of that with the distinctive jazz-hip hop-funk-noir that is the Younge/Muhammad/JID trademark creates something worthy of comparison to Carn's past work but which could only have been made right now. One can detect nods to musical motifs by Carn's jazz peers that have served as frequent sample fodder, but his compositional and improvisational integrity remain indisputable throughout.

Further distanced in time from John Coltrane's spiritual new-jazz and the influential second Miles Davis quintet, Doug Carn showed a close affinity with r&b when recording his fourth and final Black Jazz album Adam's Apple. Sharing his interest in r&b was a platoon of committed, resourceful jazz musicians including young star-in-the-making Ronnie Laws, who'd worked with Earth, Wind & Fire before that band's big commercial breakthrough. Of the others, ace guitarists Nathan Page and Calvin Keys had acquired intimacy with the soulful properties of African-American music of the time performing with the premier jazz organist Jimmy Smith.

My absolute favorite Black Jazz album was Infant Eyes, by pianist Doug Carn and his wife, Jean Carn. The record had a sensual, powerful feel. What made the album a hit were the soulful lyrics the Carns crafted for jazz standards such as Bobby Hutcherson's Little B's Poem, Wayne Shorter's Infant Eyes, John Coltrane's Acknowledgment from A Love Supreme, and Horace Silver's Peace. Doug's arrangements and Jean's searing, passionate vocals gave the album a distinctly 1970s African-American feel.

There's early work with Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner in Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop, work with Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, a stint in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and also one with Miles. There's his groundbreaking and highly influential Ntu Troop albums of the early 70s and his jazz-funk work including two classic albums with the Mizell Brothers, one of which supplied A Tribe Called Quest with a sample that was smooth like butter. That's not to mention appearances on beloved albums by Pharoah Sanders, Donald Byrd, Norman Connors, Roy Ayers, Gene Ammons, Phyllis Hyman, Jackie McLean and many others. This is what Gary Bartz brings to the Jazz Is Dead project and as can be expected, his questing spirit fits the JID style like a glove and has produced an album that's a cutting-edge addition to his immense canon as he effortlessly interfaces with a new generation.

Curtis Fuller - Keep It Simple (2005) {Savant SCD 2062 rec 2003}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 331 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 136 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 20 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2003, 2005 Savant Records | SCD 2062
Jazz / Hard Bop / Trombone

Taking off from 2004's Up Jumped Spring, trombonist Curtis Fuller once again reunites with a former Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers alum for a set of standards and original compositions. Joining Fuller this time is tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson, who played with Blakey from the late '80s until the drummer's death in 1990. Together they reignite the fiery, soulful Jazz Messenger aesthetic on such standout Fuller tunes as the John Coltrane-influenced "Maze" and the swinging hard boppish "A La Mode." Backing Fuller here is pianist Doug Carn, bassist Rodney Jordan, and drummer Fritz Wise.

Over the last 12 months, Adrian Younge and A Tribe Called Quest member Ali Shaheed Muhammad have been inviting some legendary musicians to swing by the former’s Los Angeles studio to make fresh tracks with vintage equipment. The results are detailed on “Jazz Is Dead”, a superb album that combines elements of dusty soundtrack jazz, soul, jazz-funk, Latin jazz and head-nodding live beats influenced by the duo’s hip-hop roots. Highlights include the atmospheric, slow-motion warmth of Roy Ayers collaboration “Hey Lover”, the floor-rocking fusion heaviness of epic Azymuth hook-up “Apocaliptico”, the languid sweetness of ‘Down Deep” (featuring Doug Carn) and the samba-soaked sunshine that is Marcos Valle composition “Nao Saia Da Praca”.

Released in 2018 by journalist David Nathan's Soul Music label, Don't Let It Go to Your Head is easily the most thoughtful and generous Jean Carn compilation. Most of the selections are drawn from Carn's time with Philadelphia International and its subsidiary TSOP, when she was in the top class of vocalists specializing in elegant soul that did not pander to the mainstream. Included are all the essentials off these four 1976-1981 albums – "Time Waits for No One," "Don't Let It Go to Your Head," the superior 12" inch version of "Was That All It Was," and "Bet Your Lucky Star" among them. A raft of duets and featured appearances on releases headlined by Norman Connors, Dexter Wansel, Al Johnson, Roy Ayers, and Grover Washington, Jr. – altogether a distillation of the Expansion label's Collaborations anthology – enhance the two-disc set. Listeners with more adventurous taste should also seek Carn's earlier work on progressive jazz sessions led by the likes of Connors, Doug Carn, Azar Lawrence, and Jamtume