This seven-CD box set features 95 tracks from legendary drummer Max Roach's small group, consisting of the 1956-1960 recordings for Emarcy and Mercury Records, as these noteworthy sessions also represent the drummer's post Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet output. In 1956 the jazz world witnessed the tragic and untimely deaths of the great trumpeter Clifford Brown and pianist Ritchie Powell. Within these seven CDs, we find Roach maintaining his assault on jazz along with trumpeter Kenny Dorham, pianist Ray Bryant, and the drummer's bandmates from the Clifford Brown years, tenor saxophone giant Sonny Rollins and bassist George Morrow.
5CD SET OF THIS JAZZ MAVERICKS GOLDEN ERA INCLUDES ALL ALBUMS RUSSELL MADE AS BANDLEADER BETWEEN 56 & 64. George Allen Russell was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger and academic who was among the first musicians to contribute significantly to the theory of harmony based on jazz rather than European music, as expounded in his book Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization .
Reissuing two essential albums from saxophonist Marion Brown - Why Not? (1968) and Porto Novo (1969) - the first recorded in NY in a quartet with pianist Stanley Cowell, bassist Sirone and drummer Rashied Ali, the second recorded in The Netherlands in a trio with Han Bennink on drums and Maarten Van Regteren Altena on double bass; essential.
Interrogative and exclamation are the punctuation for the pair of albums by Marion Brown on Why Not? Porto Novo! Revisited. Each fits its associative music, and the package documents the altoist at two distinct artistic junctures separated by just thirteen-months. The original albums have been in and out of circulation since their respective offing, but what makes this disc even more valuable is the commonality it shares with earlier reissue releases on the Swiss Ezz-thetics label…
Tracks from three recently discovered 1960s concerts, by the celebrated arranger, pianist & experimental theorist, George Russell, released here for the very first time - and from the same period as his famous Ezz-Thetics album (1961) with Eric Dolphy. The first, in Lennox Massachusetts, includes Al Kiger, Dave Baker, Chuck Israels & Dave Young; the 2nd, from the 1964 Newport Jazz Festival features Don Ellis, John Gilmore, Steve Swallow, Pete La Roca & Sheila Jordan. The third, a single track, is from a 1964 European date, with Thad Jones, Joe Farrell, Al Heath & Garnett Brown. Included are new versions of the Russell classics: Stratusphunk and The Outer View.