Stanton Williams

This album features the work of revolutionary jazz artists who created new radical music infused with the values of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Self-determination, economic power and musical freedoms explode as the avant-garde collided with Black Power and Afro-centricity.
Released to coincide with the new book by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker on Soul Jazz Records, this album is jam-packed with super rare, deep jazz from artists many of which all feature heavily in the new book. These include Mary Lou Williams, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, Phil Cohran and many more.

Sheldon Bart is a drifter, and a small-time con man. He meets his old friend, Brother Bud, a big-time con man into faith healing and fencing stolen cars, at his revival tent outside a small town. While he's helping Brother Bud, he falls in love with Arlene, a local supermarket clerk who believes in UFOs and is deeply religious and deeply lonely. When Arlene has a vision of a coming UFO, everyone deals with it in their own way.

Green Mars is the second album release from Viriditas. Like it's predecessor Green Mars is loosely based on the events of the book of the same name by author Kim Stanley Robinson. The music portrays events and emotions drawn from the multitude of characters in the expansive and inspiring book, from the teenage runaway Nirgal on his journey of exploration and self discovery, to the scientist Sax Russel, a diminutive introvert quietly working out a way to thwart the plans of the blundering planetary government.

Reviewing Halliday’s previous recorded work with guitarist Corey Christianson, Billy Kerr remarked in “Saxophone Journal,” “His saxophone playing and his music are at the highest levels, great dark, fat sound, wonderful time and feel, as well as a clean, fast technique . . . I’m sure he could play any kind of music.”