An overlooked experiment from a remarkably ambitious late fifties period of bassist Charles Mingus, 1958’s A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry doesn’t actually include poetry in the traditional sense. Episodically exploring the Harlem-based narrator’s relationship with jazz, the elongated “Scenes in the City” features spoken word vignettes by actor Melvin Stewart and was partially penned by Langston Hughes. In addition to the piece’s music cues of Mingus and his band, the rest of the material drops the verbal experiments in favor of equality enticing tracks that went on to inform the seminal Mingus Ah Um.
Category: Jazz
Sun Ra Arkestra :: Live In Berlin, 1970
Off-axis early peak expansion. Captured at a moment when the Arkestra was stretching further into its own woozy mythos, Berlin 1970 hangs in low orbit, charged with a sidelong electricity. Grooves materialize, then fracture the frame—sliding from radical abstraction to something that starts to hold.
Laurindo Almeida Quartet Featuring Bud Shank (1955)
Before landmark bossa nova records like Antônio Carlos Jobim’s The Composer of Desafinado, Plays (1963) and Getz/Gilberto (1964), there was Laurindo Almeida Quartet Featuring Bud Shank (1955). This quiet trailblazer of Braz-jazz not only meets all the criteria for Midnite Jazz, but also captures the nocturnal side of midcentury Brazilian samba/West Coast Jazz fusion.
Gregory Uhlmann :: Extra Stars
The SML guitarist moves away from the instrumental collective’s fragrant, glitched-up grooves on his new solo album, instead charting a path through weirder waters. Featuring a wealth of pedals, loops, samples and synths, Uhlmann creates a strikingly diverse yet surprisingly simple world, one in which wisdom and naivete strike a tentative balance. Though his sound may be warped and stretched, Uhlmann’s peculiar emotional resonance rings clear and true.
Florian Pellissier Quintet :: Pacifiques Biches
Jazz grip. Via Paris, the Florian Pellissier Quintet dropped their fifth long-player, Pacifiques Biches, in the waning days of last year, casting a subtle, if luminous, glow over the tinsel-lit holiday hustle. Echoing the reflective sophistication of 1970s European jazz, the album weaves atmospheric textures and interplay into a nuanced tapestry of understated restraint. Impressively, and this is no small feat, its nine tracks maintain a contemporary edge without slipping into the well-trodden traps of obvious pastiche.
David Lee Jr. :: Evolution
New Orleans — birthplace of the syncopated rhythm splinter known as the second-line. Cut to 1974. Drummer and composer David Lee Jr. quietly releases his lone solo LP, the Afro‑futurist Evolution, privately pressed to just 400 copies on his own Supernal Records imprint. A percussive spiritual meditation in motion, the record folds intricate polyrhythms into hypnotic, repetitive loops that sound as urgent and on-point today as they did half a century ago. Four hundred copies. Infinite resonance.
Makoto Terashita meets Harold Land :: Topology
Recorded in 1984, the unlikely pairing of young Japanese jazz pianist Makoto Terashita and veteran American saxophonist Harold Land was kept obscured for far too long. With its opus “Dragon Dance” originally showcased on the BBE label’s essential J Jazz: Deep Modern Jazz from Japan four-part compilation series, Topology unearths the sensational full session. Like his run seventies Blue Note sessions with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, the unsung tenorist Land is a marvel as a collaborative partner, elevating this set of mostly original compositions by the younger, up-and-coming Makoto Terashita.
Bill Frisell :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
For Bill Frisell, music at its best feels dreamlike. It bends and manipulates time, contracting and expanding. On his latest, In My Dreams the guitarist is joined by longtime collaborators for a spectral set of tunes, including a sterling cover of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan.” He joins us to discuss the record, dreams, and Gary Larson’s The Far Side.
Ron Carter :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
In more than a half-century of activity, the legendary bassist has played with nearly everyone in jazz, from cult heroes to celebrated titans to forgotten mavericks. but longevity and dedication as a sideman, along with his stint in Miles Davis’ fabled Second Great Quintet, tend to obscure his many other major accomplishments. For his Aquarium Drunkard Interview, Carter talked about the inspiration behind his latest project and his hardscrabble and illustrious past, and went into his philosophical outlook and practical methods. Breaking down music as an art, a profession and a discipline, Carter shows that a life spent keeping time has not prevented him from existing in the present moment.
Joe Zawinul :: Zawinul
Recorded between his brief tenure as Miles’ early electric co-conspirator and the formation of Weather Report, Joe Zawinul’s 1971 self-titled LP arrived as a quiet statement in the first wave of fusion excess. If Weather Report would later showcase Zawinul as a dominant bandleader and sonic architect, Zawinul offers something more revealing: quiet evidence of a singular vision reaching full bloom. A document of what might have been had the electric revolution taken a more measured, orchestrated path, and a testament to the composer who, even in the shadows, was already shaping its future.
Stephen McCraven :: Wooley The Newt
Originally released on Marion Brown’s Sweet Earth imprint in 1979, Wooley The Newt is a true lost spiritual jazz relic from percussionist and composer Stephen McCraven. Resurrected in a limited capacity by British reissue label Moved-By-Sound at the tail end of last year, the record was sampled by Stephen’s son Makaya on his 2020’s reimaging of Gil Scott-Heron’s I’m New Here. Recorded in Paris and more than long overdue, it’s a fascinating relic of seventies avant-jazz and a lost bandleader debut of the utmost artistic craft.
Tommy Hendrix :: Out Of The Mist (1958)
Out Of The Mist (1958) is the lone trace of Tommy Hendrix, a cool-jazz crooner whose biography begins and ends with a solitary release. It’s an obscure album lost to time by an artist who seemingly never existed. Tommy Hendrix is a midcentury ghost, and Out Of The Mist is the sound of his specter briefly passing through our dimension, like a puff of cigarette smoke lingering in a cocktail lounge that nobody has ever set foot in.
Muriel Grossmann :: Plays the Music of McCoy Tyner and the Grateful Dead
On a four-track double album, Austrian saxophonist Muriel Grossmann pays tribute to the music of two American visionaries: McCoy Tyner and Bob Weir. Though the music of the jazz pianist and Grateful Dead guitarist would not seem to have much in common, Grossmann’s festive, idiosyncratic renditions suggest some intriguing links. With an ear for robust melody and an open-ended approach, Grossmann has created a moving tribute that suggests the only true way to carry on is to transform.
Donald Byrd :: Ethiopian Knights
After a decade under Van Gelder’s roof, Donald Byrd decamps for sun-kissed LA to record Ethiopian Knights, an album that rests comfortably in the improvisational sweet spot where Mwandishi and Peter Green’s End of the Game converge; acknowledging the gravitational pull of early 70s jazz funk but reveling in the turf that lies at its edge.
Gary Peacock/Ralph Towner :: Oracle
The recently reissued Oracle, a collaboration between bassist Gary Peacock and recently deceased guitarist Ralph Towner gives us a look at two legends in deep midcareer. Originally released in 1995, it shows two restless musicians, each with their own highly developed, distinct musical language, looking to mix things up. Though more
Peacock-forward, its seamless mix of carefully spontaneous playing and freewheeling composition serves as a fitting farewell to Towner, and reminds us that the great ones never stop evolving, long after their so-called “classic” eras have ended.