Yet another inspired ride in BBE’s masterclass series highlighting the golden age of modern Japanese jazz from the late 1960s – early 80s. Helmed and curated by Tony Higgins and Mike Peden, this installment shines a light on the Masaru Imada Trio + 1 lp, Planets. Originally released in 1977 via private press, the seven track set finds pianist and bandleader Masaru Imada joined by bassist Kunimitsu Inaba and drummer Tetsujiro Obara, along with sympathetic percussion courtesy of Yuji Imamura.
Category: Jazz
Gisle Røen Johansen :: Kveldsragg
The turns this music takes, random as they seem, are never cheap jump-scares. They are developed organically throughout, and Johansen’s crack squad of Norwegian musicians fully commits to them. Somehow they manage to weld spiritual jazz and icy ECM and martial prog and no-wave noise into an improbable, and emotionally stirring, unity. It is one of the most inventive and consistently surprising records out this year, and it might be one of the finest.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Takuro Okada
As 2022 winds to a close, we are wrapping up this year’s installment of the Lagniappe Sessions with the Tokyo based artist Takuro Okada. The set finds Okada on the heels of his first album in two years, Betsu No Jikan, which features a heavy murderers’ row of of guest players including Jim O’Rourke, Shun Ishiwaka, Nels Cline, Sam Gendel, and Carlos Niño. No stranger to covers (the LP kicks off with Okada and co.’s transfiguration of Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”), the following session finds the artist paying tribute to fellow countryman Haruomi Hosono, and the title track from Don Cherry’s 1975 LP, Brown Rice.
Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus
Candid may not have the same name brand recognition as Blue Note or Impulse! But during its brief existence, the label made its mark on the jazz and blues worlds—as a recent series of remastered reissues demonstrates. The cream of the crop is Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus, recorded in October 1960 and released the following year. It’s a thoroughly crackling affair, highlighting the composer at one of his many peaks and featuring an awesome lineup of musicians
Ryo Kawasaki :: Juice
A deeply pleasing sensation arises when terrific cover art not only fully delivers on the music, but also bears a distinct resemblance to it. Ryo Kawasaki’s 1976 jazz-funk album Juice is one such record. Bright and refreshing like a piece of citrus, peel the skin back and you’ll find an electric fantasyland of traversing wires and circuits. Over the course of its seven tracks, the visually sci-fi-tinged world of Juice feels at once perfectly of its time, yet remains delightfully vital in 2022.
Pat Metheny Group (ECM, 1978)
Guitarist Pat Metheny recently described music as a “carrot”, “I am still figuring out what the stick is,” he concluded to Ross Simonini in The Believer. That idea of constant investigation permeates Metheny’s nearly 50 year music career as well as his first s/t LP with his Pat Metheny Group.
Alice Coltrane :: Live At The Berkeley Community Theater 1972
This is a bootleg, make no mistake! But however you hear it, you gotta hear it (perhaps over on YouTube?). A major addition to the Alice Coltrane canon, this soundboard recording features the pioneering musician and her incredible band (Charlie Haden on bass, Ben Riley on drums, Aashish Khan on sarod, Pranesh Khan on tabla and Bobby W. on tamboura and percussion) journeying fearlessly across the astral plane. Four tracks, fours sides! Tons of AC’s intense organ hijinks – how did she get that crazy sound?
Miles Davis Septet :: Chateau Neuf, Oslo Norway | November 9, 1971
Funky tonk, indeed. In the fall of 1971 the Miles Davis septet embarked on a 21 date tour of Europe. Captured for broadcast on Norwegian television was the ensemble’s ascendant set at Chateau Neuf in Oslo, Norway. A high water mark of this iteration of Davis’ band, the incendiary hour-plus set runs the voodoo down and back again, with untethered performances from all involved. Edging into the beyond, Keith Jarrett appears especially possessed…
Abstract Truths: An Evolving Jazz Compendium – Volume 8
The return of Abstract Truths. This series began in 2016 as a way to highlight jazz in all its many forms. The selector for this installment’s dig finds musician and collage artist Ilyas Ahmed weaving a two-plus hour tapestry of sound, spanning 1964-2021.
Diversions :: Spencer Zahn On Keith Jarrett
We recently caught up with Spencer Zahn whose new album, Pale Horizon, dropped last week via Cascine. A multi-instrumentalist whose varied output touches on jazz and piano-based works, for this installment of Diversions Zahn dives deep into the works of fellow traveler, Keith Jarrett.
Alice Coltrane :: Yogaville 1993
Beautiful Alice Coltrane artifacts keep popping up, whether in official guise (last year’s Turiya Sings collection) or unofficial bootleg situations (the astonishing Berkeley 1972 double LP). Somewhere in between is this recently unearthed video of Coltrane performing at the Yogaville complex in Buckingham, Virginia, in the 1990s.
Akira Ishikawa & His Count Buffalos :: African Rock
Cop the groove. Unleashed back into the wild, Japanese drummer Akira Ishikawa’s 1971 lp, African Rock. Working under the guise of a funky jazz excursion, its eclectic forty minute runtime is full of surprises. Expect a torrid medley of percussion, fat blasts of brass, inspired vocal weirdness, and searing electric guitar courtesy of MVP, Kimio Mizutani.
Turiya Alice Coltrane and Devadip Carlos Santana :: Illuminations
Coming together in an unlikely but harmonious collaboration under their recently bestowed Sanskrit names, Turiya Alice Coltrane and Devadip Carlos Santana recorded Illuminations as a reflection of their newfound spiritual awakening. Released in 1974, the album embodies a deliberate shift for both artists, who had edged closer to explicitly devotional compositions throughout the early seventies…
Charles Lloyd/Billy Higgins :: Unreleased Duet, July 1993
Likely a precursor to the 2004 ECM double-duo-album Which Way Is East, which was Higgins’ final recording, the ’93 duet contains a familiar acoustic ambience—beautiful, ragged, scruffy—and sounds imprecise but locked in: theme and un-variation that could only be crafted by these two Americans.
Alice Coltrane :: 16mm Documentary
Culled from a 1970 documentary created for a segment of the Black Journal television program, this unearthed 16mm color film finds Alice Coltrane between the albums Huntington Ashram Monastery, and Ptah, the El Daoud.
Captured three years after the death of John Coltrane, the piece begins in media res outside the Long Island, NY home the artist shared with her late husband and children. In a floating voiceover, Coltrane reflects on matters of the spiritual and beyond, as we catch a glimpse of the family’s domestic life on the property. A scant yet powerful fifteen minutes, things soon turn to music as the film shifts to a grip of rare, live footage of Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders getting free in performance. Highly recommended.