Reviews that mention Lester Bowie
July 28, 2021
Blasé and Yasmina Revisited
ezz-thetics 1115
Steve Tintweiss and the Purple Why
MarksTown
Inky Dot Media ISDM 003
Two glimpses of where advanced Jazz was heading in the late 1960s are provided by these expressive discs. The genre was at one of its lowest ebbs. Fusion hadn’t yet attained populist hegemony by mixing simple melodies with ornate solos, though bands were already adopting Rock-Pop currents. Mainstreamers were repeating time-worn formulae and the so-called New Thing had been banished by most labels since its big money possibilities were negligible, MORE
July 28, 2021
Blasé and Yasmina Revisited
ezz-thetics 1115
Steve Tintweiss and the Purple Why
MarksTown
Inky Dot Media ISDM 003
Two glimpses of where advanced Jazz was heading in the late 1960s are provided by these expressive discs. The genre was at one of its lowest ebbs. Fusion hadn’t yet attained populist hegemony by mixing simple melodies with ornate solos, though bands were already adopting Rock-Pop currents. Mainstreamers were repeating time-worn formulae and the so-called New Thing had been banished by most labels since its big money possibilities were negligible, MORE
February 6, 2019
Sound
Delmark DE 4408
Milford Graves
Bäbi
Corbett vs. Dempsey CvsDCD052
Bobby Naughton/Leo Smith/Perry Robinson
The Haunt
NoBusiness Records NBCD 105
Instant Composers Pool
GroupComposing
Corbett vs. Dempsey CvsDCD056
Cosmic Forest
The Spiritual Sounds of MPS
MPS 4029759122562
Something in the Air: CD Reissues help define the massive musical changes of the 1960s and 1970s
By Ken Waxman
MORE
January 8, 2011
Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club
Jazzwerkstatt JW 073
David Murray/Chico Freeman
With Özay
ITM Archives 920009
By Ken Waxman
Over the course of his career saxophonist David Murray has blown hot, cold, but mostly cool. Despite making hundreds of records, few are first class, although most reach a level of high competence. Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club – initially released in 1977 on India Navigation – is one of his best early discs, however. Meanwhile With Özay, from the 1990s, is a top-flight vocal CD, where despite the billing, Murray, Chico Freeman and other first-call jazzers provide sympathetic accompaniment to singer Özay. MORE
February 11, 2010
Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club
Jazzwerkstatt JW 073
Peitzer Grand
Mit Vieren
Jazzwerkstatt JW 077
Thirty-odd years make a big difference in the improvised music scene, both in Europe and North America. In fact, one wonders if any of the participants on these two fine live CDs – not to mention the associated audience members – could have imagined the altered musical and political landscape of the future.
In that timeframe, as is proven by many of the tracks on Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, it was the so-called avant-gardists in New York who were celebrating jazz’s past while contemporary players stuck to Bop and Fusion sounds. Meanwhile, as Mit Vieren demonstrates, the gap between East and West Germany was still a formidable chasm. That era’s version of political correctness made it necessary for even advanced German jazz combos to include foreign musicians among the players to ensure no band consisted of only participants from both sides of the Wall. MORE
October 7, 2002
Sunshine & An Even Break (never give a sucker)
Fuel 2000 Records 302 061 215 2
Potentially the time when Energy music of both the American and European varieties reached the zenith of acceptance, 1969 was also unique because it suddenly seemed that the very fabric of society was ripping apart.
Riots were commonplace on both continents. Radicalized students were staging sometimes-violent demonstrations to demand more liberalized education processes and to protest against local repression and the war in Viet Nam. Fringe groups had turned to kidnapping, bomb throwing and arson in Europe, while in the U.S., the Black Power Movement had moved into its short-lived, so-called revolutionary phrase. MORE