Cecil Taylor The Classic Albums

Prince Lasha & Sonny Simmons - The Cry! (1962) {Contemporary OJCCD-1945-2 rel 1993}
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© 1962, 2001 Contemporary Records / Fantasy | OJCCD-1945-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz / Flute / Saxophone

In the early '60s, flutist Prince Lasha's work with alto saxophonist Sonny Simmons was often compared to the trailblazing free jazz that Ornette Coleman was exploring at the time. To be sure, Coleman was a major inspiration to both of them. And yet, The Cry! demonstrates that Lasha's work with Simmons had an avant-garde energy of its own. Coleman is a strong influence on this 1962 session – which Lasha co-led with Simmons – but The Cry! isn't an outright imitation of Coleman's work any more than Phil Woods' recordings are outright imitations of Charlie Parker's.

Once in a while, an album comes along to take your breath away. That is certainly the case with this boxed set, which contains no fewer than 25 CDs tracing the history of jazz piano from early 1899 to the end of 1958. Several years ago, the same record company issued a set ten CDs covering some of the same ground, but this expanded version is even more amazing.

John Coltrane - The Prestige Recordings (1956-58) [16CD BoxSet] {1991 Prestige Remaster}
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© 1991 Prestige / Fantasy | 16PCD-4405-2
Jazz / Hard Bop / Modal Jazz / Saxophone

The two and a half years represented in this mammoth collection made up a period of great activity and development for young John Coltrane. It was a time in which he worked in the Miles Davis Quintet, then joined Thelonious Monk for his historic Five Spot engagement, and then took his place in the legendary 1958 Miles Davis Sextet. It was a time in which he grew from a somewhat promising tenor player to a supernova about to burst upon the jazz world. It was also a span during which Trane traveled with great regularity to the original New Jersey location of the Rudy Van Gelder Studio, taking part in no less than 25 lengthy Prestige recording sessions.

Duke Jordan - Les Liaisons Dangereuses + East and West Of Jazz (2012) {Charlie Parker Records, The Complete Collection, Vol 2, rec 1962}
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© 1962, 2012 Charlie Parker Records / Membran Media / Documents | 233193 / 2
Jazz / Hard Bop / Piano

Exhaustive 30 CD collection from the Jazz legend's short-lived label. Contains 44 original albums (421 tracks) plus booklet. Every record-collector has run across an album with the little sax-playing bird in it's label-logo, right next to the brand name Charlie Parker Records or CP Parker Records. Turning the sleeve over, especially if it was one of the non-Parker releases, and seeing a '60s release date under the header Stereo-pact! Was as exciting an experience as it was confusing. Was the claim Bird Lives meant more literally than previously thought?

Eric Dolphy - Last Date (1964) {Fontana Japan, 32JD-100, Early Press rel 1986 - direct from original master}
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© 1964, 1986 Fontana / Nippon Phonogram Japan | 32JD-100
Jazz / Post Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modal Jazz / Flute / Saxophone

Allegedly Eric Dolphy's final recorded performance – a fact historians roundly dispute – this session in Hilversum, Holland, teams the masterful bass clarinetist, flutist, and alto saxophonist with a Dutch trio of performers who understand the ways in which their hero and leader modified music in such a unique, passionate, and purposeful way far from convention. In pianist Misha Mengelberg, bassist Jacques Schols, and drummer Han Bennink, Dolphy was firmly entwined with a group who understood his off-kilter, pretzel logic concept in shaping melodies and harmonies that were prime extensions of Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, and Cecil Taylor. These three Dolphy originals, one from Monk, one from Mengelberg, and a standard are played so convincingly and with the utmost courage that they created a final stand in the development of how the woodwindist conceived of jazz like no one else before, during, or after his life.

Alexander von Schlippenbach - Schlippenbach Plays Monk (1997) {ENJA}
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© 1997 ENJA Records | CD 9104-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz / Piano

Recorded during a German tour in 1996, Schlippenbach Plays Monk teams the esteemed pianist with Ino Nobuyoshi on bass and Sunny Murray on drums. Schlippenbach has played with both sidemen previously (Nobuyoshi can be heard with the Schlippenbach/Takase-led Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra and Murray on the excellent FMP album Smoke) but this tour was the first that brought them all together and the pairing brings an interesting dynamic to the often revisited Thelonious Monk songbook.