David Murray Quartet

Voyages et Rêves est le premier album d’un jeune batteur/percussionniste guadeloupéen au touché recherché et aux visions captivantes. Elevé dans la tradition du gwo-ka par son père, fondateur du groupe Gwakasonné et passeur de ce genre emblématique de la Guadeloupe, Sonny a accompagné aussi bien les cadors de son île (Tanya St-Val) que les ténors du jazz mondial (David Murray, Reggie Washington…).

With tunes such as "Let's Get It On," "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," "Try a Little Tenderness" and "Night Train" being included, this CD certainly qualifies as one of the most unusual of all the World Saxophone Quartet recordings. Far from being a sellout to commercialism, this set features the WSQ (altoists Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake, tenor saxophonist David Murray and baritonist Hamiet Bluiett) meeting the six soul and R&B tunes (which are joined by three complementary originals) head on. The WSQ was always open to playing rhythmically and was not allergic to strong melodies while including solo and group improvisations that were quite advanced. The combination works quite well on this surprising success.

For this 1987 release, the World Saxophone Quartet performs ten group originals: three apiece by tenor saxophonist David Murray and altoist Oliver Lake and two by baritonist Hamiet Bluiett and altoist Julius Hemphill. Celebrating its tenth year as a part-time group at the time, the WSQ was not as radical as ROVA, but their mixture of melodies and abstraction, rhythms and adventure were still quite appealing and filled their own niche. This is an underrated release, recorded between their better-known Plays Duke Ellington and Rhythm and Blues CDs.

Archie Shepp & Bill Dixon - Quartet (1962-64) + Archie Shepp - Fire Music (1965)
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© 2009, 1995 FreeFactory / Impulse! | FF 065 / 051 158-2
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Saxophone

The unique quartet recordings by Archie Shepp and Bill Dixon. Their only known recorded works together consist of the studio quartet album made for Savoy in October 1962 - presented here on CD for the first time ever. As a bonus to this interesting album, we have added Archie Shepp’s only other recording session for the Savoy label, with the New York Contemporary Five including Don Cherry on one track; and Bill Dixon’s second recording session, in a septet format.

Fred Ho & The Saxophone Liberation Front - Snake-Eaters (2011) {Mutable-Big Red Media 002}
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© 2011 Mutable Music / Big Red Media | 002
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Experimental / Modern Creative / Saxophone

Snake-Eaters debuts Fred Ho's Saxophone Liberation Front, featuring composer Ho on baritone saxophone and Hafez Modirzadeh (soprano), Bobby Zankel (alto) and Salim Washington (tenor). Darker than Blue, inspired by Curtis Mayfield's song, We the People Who are Darker than Blue, employs shifting meters (including a blues section in 11/8 and 11.5 /8), 12-tone serialism, compound meter ostinati, and Lydian chromatic approaches to orchestration. Ho's Yellow Power, Yellow Soul Suite coincides with the soon-to-be publication of the Drs. Roger Buckley and Tamara Roberts' festschrift by the same title, and includes the previously recorded "Fishing Song of the East China Sea" (originally a flute trio with bass violin on the out-of-print recording by Fred Ho and the Asian American Art Ensemble, Bamboo that Snaps Back; and the now-defunct Brooklyn Sax Quartet recording The Far Side of Here), as well as Afro-Asian adaptations of other Asian folk songs.