Joe Bonner

This 1982 recording features saxophonist Sonny Simmons and drummer Billy Higgins and a smokin' pickup band that included bassist Herbie Lewis and pianist Joe Bonner, and a horn section that added Michael Marcus on baritone, Al Thomas on trombone, and Joe Hardin on trumpet. The opener is "Sparrow's Last Jump," a stomping hard bop workout that features Simmons in top lyrical form and Lewis bowing the entire tune, despite the fact that it's based on hard bop – hell, post-hard bop – changes and is played in 6/8 Mingus tempo! Of course, Higgins is dancing all over the kit and it's obvious that, in his solo, Simmons is reading that frenetic yet seamless dance because he goes over the time signature with his legato phrasing and cascades his arpeggios right through the middle of the intervals. It settles a bit on the title track, where the horns are left out so Simmons is sitting in only the rhythm section. Here, Higgins plays out a double-time rhythm on the ride cymbal before slowing it to four.

By the time Azar Lawrence released Bridge Into the New Age in 1974 - his first recording as a bandleader he had already built himself an enviable reputation as a saxophone player alongside the likes of McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw. Lawrence's vigorous and emotionally multifaceted playing shines on this album which was a truly forward-looking release in the mid-1970s.

Pharoah Sanders - Love In Us All (1973) {Impulse! Japan Mini LP, UCCI-9134 rel 2007}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 263 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 99 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 1973, 2007 Impulse! / Universal Japan | UCCI-9134
Jazz / Modal Music / Post Bop / Progressive Jazz / Flute / Saxophone

Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Pharoah Sander featurign 24-bit/96kHz remastering and original LP replica Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) jacket design. Recorded near the end of Pharoah Sanders' tenure at Impulse, Love in Us All consists of two extended compositions. Together, they serve as an aural representation of the way Sanders' music polarized the jazz world at the time. Like many of his "New Thing" peers, the saxophonist sought the sound world beyond the constraints of conventional harmony. This often translated into music played at the grating, far reaches of his instrument. "To John" finds Sanders in this territory.

Blues With a Message isn't just about lost love and the toils of specific lives, the blues (particularly within the folk-blues traditions) spent some time dealing with sociopolitical issues on the side, primarily before the rise of electric blues. Here, Arhoolie has compiled a set of pieces related to a surprisingly large number of issues. Among them: Minstrel shows, the mechanization of cotton farming, and its related exodus to the North, sharecropping, segregation, the Korean War, the influenza epidemic, the New Deal, civil rights movements, Chicago employment opportunities – all are given a song or two here. The music quality is roughly equivalent to many of the folk-blues recordings available, though the "big name" artists are largely absent from this one (Lightnin Hopkins does make an appearance singing about sharecropping, however). The songs are deliberately focused on the issues more than the music, but the music can still carry its soul. This one probably won't be on many highest-sales lists in the blues, but it's both historically important and musically enjoyable.