Tao of Steve

Steve Coleman's achievement in creating a musical environment for serious improvising that sets aside acoustic, swing-based rhythms for electric, funk-influenced ones that don't fall prey to repetitive fusion formulas is one of the great creative accomplishments in jazz over the last 20 years. The Tao of Mad Phat, recorded live in the studio before a small invited audience in an attempt to capture the looseness and ambience of the Five Elements' live performances, may be the ideal entry point to sampling that criminally underrated feat.

Steve Lacy - Scratching the Seventies / Dreams (1996) {3CD Set, Saravah SHL2082 rec 1969-1977}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.19 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 467 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 18 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1969-77, 1996 Saravah | SHL 2082
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Post Bop / Saxophone

This gives a good picture of Lacy's range in the 1970s. Solos, some very stretched out ensemble work, some of the best Aebi I've heard. There's even a snippet of Lacy playing Satie––if you visit the Satie Museum in Honfleur you'll heard a beauteous solo of his, and he played Satie in a few European concerts, recordings of which exist and should be issued. The three-CD box set that makes up Scratching the Seventies/Dreams represents Steve Lacy's first expatriate records in Paris beginning with sessions in June of 1969 and concluding in 1977 with six of the seven members of the Steve Lacy Septet (pianist Bobby Few was not yet on board). Here, five complete albums tell the story of that decade in the musical aesthetic of Steve Lacy's development as an artist as well as a composer and bandleader.

The group’s current album Def Trance Beat documents the groups latest efforts in this arena. Following upon the success of the Five Elements’ last release The Tao of Mad Phat, Def Trance Beat’s musical form progresses with an intuitive flow while displaying insight into an ancient science, all within definitive creative musical structures. This particular way of expressing music and musical improvisation comes from the combination of individual and collective experiences and the general way the musicians vibrate spiritually in their environment.