Analysing Childrens Art

These two sessions were produced by Lee Kraft in 1957 featuring the inimitable tenor saxophonist John Coltrane in two different formats; a quintet with Donald Byrd, Walter Bishop, Jr., Wendell Marshall and Art Blakey, and a 15-piece big band organized by Blakey. Coltrane was featured prominently in both settings and played exceptionally throughout. While the other soloists were all top-notch musicians, Coltranes compositions and performance clearly stole the show. His solos were powerful and confident, ripping out sequences of 16th note lines that soared over the full range of the horn with complete command.

The Art of Noise‘s 1987 album In No Sense? Nonsense! is reissued as a two-CD deluxe edition in November 2018. Gary Lagan had left after In Visible Silence leaving Anne Dudley and J.J. Jeczalik to continue as a duo. Dudley recalls, “At that time, we were meeting new people, doing adverts and films and things. There was lots of new input. These adverts generated other new tracks. They would evolve and we’d agree they were good ideas. And we’d ask each other what would happen if we did this, this and this? So that kept everything evolving.” The reissue features newly-remastered audio including bonus seven-inch and 12-inch mixes including collaborations with Paul McCartney (the Art of Noise ‘Spies Like Us’ remix) and Duane Eddy (‘Spies’). Additionally, there are 22 unreleased recordings from the sessions, taken from the original master tapes.

A seminal session as a leader by the young Art Farmer - recorded for United Artists, and a great set of tight lyrical tunes, played by Farmer in his sparkling style - in a group along with Benny Golson on tenor and Bill Evans on piano. Evans is a special treat here, as the 1958 session was recorded at a time when he was making a fair bit of appearances in various rhythm sections for horn players (like Miles Davis) - and although this role in Evans' career was a short one, it yielded some amazingly beautiful moments, as you'll hear on this album. Art's brother Addison plays bass, and Dave Bailey rounds out the group on drums.