Come Ahead

Although it isn't as focused or direct as After the Storm, Better Days Ahead showcases Norman Brown's growth as a musician. Brown seamlessly fuses jazz, R&B, pop, and soul together, creating a distinctive hybrid that has the technique of an accomplished jazz musician and the accessibility of pop. The songs on Better Days Ahead aren't quite as memorable as those on After the Storm, but Brown's dazzling ability on the guitar makes it worthwhile listening.

Bobby Moore - Go Ahead And Burn (2004) {Chess–Shout! RPMSH275 rec 1966-1970}
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© 1966-70, 2004 Chess Recordings / Shout! / Cherry Red | RPMSH 275
Soul / Soul Jazz / R&B / Pop-Soul

Everything that Moore recorded for Chess is on this 24-track compilation, including all 12 songs from 1966's Searching for My Love (his sole LP), both sides of four non-LP 1966-1970 singles, and four cuts (two from 1968 and two from 1970) that had only appeared previously on a Japanese LP. It's decent, but only adequate, period mid- to late-'60s Southern club soul by a sax/organ/guitar-paced combo, the sound of a band that came up with one excellent song (the hit ballad "Searching for My Love") and never scrounged up anything else to match it.

One of Cecil Taylor's earliest recordings, Looking Ahead! does just that while still keeping several toes in the tradition. It's an amazing document of a talent fairly straining at the reins, a meteor about to burst onto the jazz scene and render it forever changed. With Earl Griffith on vibes, Taylor uses an instrumentation he would return to occasionally much later on, one that lends an extra percussive layer to the session, emphasizing the new rhythmic attacks he was experimenting with. Griffith sounds as though he might have been a conceptual step or two behind the other three but, in the context of the time, this may have served to make the music a shade more palatable to contemporary tastes…

If this session were to be described in just one word, that would be "Power." Hard-bop specialists Mads Vinding and Alex Riel have both recorded with Dexter Gordon and have each played powerful, yet straight-ahead jazz for over thirty years. Drummer Riel has worked with hard bop leaders such as Jackie McLean, Michael Brecker, Kenny Drew, and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Bassist Vinding, similarly, has worked with Johnny Griffin, Ed Thigpen, the Ernie Wilkins big band, and Duke Jordan. The third member of the trio, pianist Enrico Pieranunzi, with nine releases as a leader, works, as do the others, in a hard bop-vein. It would seem quite unnecessary to mention credentials like this if the artists lived in New York City or recorded with a major U.S. label; but Vinding and Riel are from Copenhagen and Pieranunzi is from Italy. Hence, their reputation may not have preceded them.

Known to most as Dianne Reeves' musical director, pianist Peter Martin takes her stellar touring trio on a musical journey through jazz's heartland on In the P.M.; guest vocalist Erin Bode adds a warm and welcome lyricism to the session. Familiar standards and fresh originals turn the trio loose with unbridled energy.

Miles Davis - Miles Ahead (1957) {2006 DSD Japan Mini LP Edition Analog Collection SICP 1202}
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© 1957, 2006 Sony Music Japan / Columbia | SICP 1202 | DSD | HQD High Quality Disc
Jazz / Cool / Experimental Big Band / Modern Creative / Trumpet

This album is perhaps most significant for the process it set in motion – the collaboration between Gil Evans and Miles Davis that would produce Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain, two of Davis' best albums. That said, this album is a miracle in itself, the result of a big gamble on the part of Columbia Records, who put together Evans and Davis, who hadn't worked together since recording the critically admired but commercially unsuccessful sides that would later be issued as The Birth of the Cool. Columbia also allowed Evans to assemble a 19-piece band for the recordings, at a time when big bands were far out of fashion and also at a time when the resulting recordings could not be released until two years in the future (because of Davis' contractual obligations with Prestige).