All Categories — All Formats  

A great trio – with Curtis Lundy on bass and Victor Lewis on drums!

A beautiful little session from John Hicks – recorded in 1988, but with a spiritual edge that reminds us of some of the best indie soul jazz sides of the 70s. Although Hicks often recorded around the time leading a trio, this set features the great altoist Bobby Watson sitting in with a group completed by Curtis Lundy on bass and Victor Lewis on drums. Watson contributed 2 tunes to the set – "Someday Soon", and "On The One" – Lundy wrote "Elementary My Dear", and Hicks penned the beautiful Coltrane-esque "Naima's Love Song".

A beautiful set of duets – Hicks on piano and Murray on tenor and bass clarinet, playing some of his most sensitive DIW material ever!

A surprisingly nice album of straight ahead tenor tracks from David Murray – playing here in a quartet with guitarist Stanley Franks, drummer Andrew Cyrille, and the great Don Pullen, who plays organ on the session! The album's not exactly in the classic soul jazz organ/tenor mode – but it is one of the few that Murray ever recorded, and it's quite interesting to hear him in this sort of a format. Plus, it was also one of the few recorded during that magic year of 1991 – when DIW really seemed to be getting things right, turning out some of the few truly genius albums in the history of the label. Titles include "Milano Strut", "Black February", "At The Cafe Central", "In The Spirit", and "High Priest".

A landmark album of the New York downtown scene – and one of the most groundbreaking guitar jazz albums of the 70s! James Blood Ulmer plays here with members of Ornette Coleman's group of the time – including Ornette himself, Denardo Coleman, and Jaamaladeen Tacuma. The style is very similar to that of Ornette's excellent Body Meta album – a mode that has the rhythms all turned inside themselves, using guitar as strongly as drums – in a style that's one of the most perfect visions of Coleman's harmelodic mode. The overall vibe is very Ornette-ish, but still also features plenty of great offbeat work by Ulmer on guitar – and titles include "Moons Shines", "Morning Bride", "Nothing To Say", and "Revealing".

The start of a beautiful relationship between the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and the DIW label – a Japanese imprint who brought the group back to full prominence in the years after they stopped recording for ECM! DIW also let the group really do their own thing, too – almost moving back to some of their best 70s modes in a recording like this – nicely mixing up many different strands of musical influences, all in a very open space that leaves plenty of room for more sensitive moments. The only change might be the increasing presence of some of Lester Bowie's brassier modes – which bring a straighter groove at a few points – but the offbeat reed work of Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell more than offset those moments. Titles include "Charm #10", "Dancer", "We Bop", "Galactic Landscape", "RMR", and "Way Way Down Yonder".

Beautiful work from Franco Cerri – a really unique guitar jazz session that features his talents in a host of different settings! The players vary throughout the set – so that one number only features a duo with bass, but others feature larger lineups that include Gianni Basso on tenor, Dino Piana on trombone, Oscar Valdambrini on trumpet, Renato Sellani on piano, and Giancarlo Barigozzi on flute – all key Italian players of the 60s who really get room to sparkle on the record! Cerri's tone runs from smoothly jazzy on the group numbers to a bit more raw and personal on some of the more stripped-down ones – and titles include "Chit Car", "Blues For Jo", "Bassezza", "New Nova", "Stardust", and "Blues Dei Framasteni".

Harold Mabern was one of the greatest under-discovered jazz talents of the 60s – playing on records with artists like The MJT+3, Lee Morgan, and others – and all these years later, he's still one of our favorite talents on the piano! This early 90s set for DIW features Mabern in a trio format, with backing by Christian McBride on bass and Tony Reedus on drums – done in a swirling soulful sound that brings out the most lyrical side of Mabern's playing – this flowing waves of energy he developed strongly from the 70s onward. Titles include "Hymn Of The Orient", "Blue Bossa", "Maybe September", "Lament", and "To Maya Glynne With Love".

A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful "new thing" jazz session from Blue Note – and proof that the avant garde in the 60s didn't necessarily have to resort to blowing their heads off to make fantastic music! Trombonist Grachan Moncur III organized the session – but like other key Blue Note dates of this type, including work from Tony Williams and Jackie McLean, the album's a very evenly-weighted date that features equal contributions from all members involved! The lineup's a dream – and features Wayne Shorter on tenor, Herbie Hancock on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, and Tony Williams on drums – and the set's very much in the vein of Williams' Life Time album for Blue Note – with lots of dark, moody, and extremely complex compositions – and beautifully restrained modern solos. Moncur wrote all the tracks, and titles include "The Twins", "Nomadic", "Gnostic", and "Thandiwa".

A mindblowing follow-up to the first Saharan Cellphone collection – and like that one, a set that's comprised of music from underground sources in contemporary Mali – pulled from the memory cards of local cellphones! Don't think that the music's tinny or amateurish, though – as the music here really represents a strong subculture expressing itself in very modern ways – recordings that rival most of the harder-edged African work we've heard in recent years, just circulated on phones instead of records! Styles range from hip hop to more familiar Mali modes – and titles include "Peguele" by DJ Mopao, "Hwa Heda" by Cheba Wassila, "Souveniram" by Kouedede, "Anar" by Mdou Moctar", "Imidiwane Friday" by Mouma Bob, and "Soul Tamashek" by Lakal Kanaye.