Discoveries like Way Back When (as well as the truly astonishing excavations the Jazz in Britain project has been putting out these last few years) illustrate how dramatically the UK jazz scene was metamorphosizing at the turn of the 1970s. There was a creative feedback mechanism at work, as innovative ideas from at home and abroad—American electricity, the European avant-garde, Canterbury prog and a homegrown free improvisation tradition going back to AMM and Cornelius Cardew—were instantly assimilated and refined.
Category: John Surman
John Surman :: Upon Reflection (ECM)
Here’s something to get lost in, the hypnotic world of British reedman John Surman, courtesy of his 1979 ECM effort, Upon Reflection. Recorded in Oslo, with production helmed by Manfred Eicher, the recording finds Surman in widescreen form experimenting with sequencers and synthesizers in addition to his duties working bass clarinet and baritone/soprano saxophone.