Jazz
Two previously unreleased archival recordings take us on trips into the past well worth taking.
This re-release features 72 minutes of unreleased music. Nearly every track on the two-hour set pushes the 20-minute range, with results more exhilarating than exhausting.
Arts Fuse writers continue their countdown of great music celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and this month’s list includes Little Feat, Jonathan Edwards, Hot Tuna, The Red Detachment of Women, and Jimmy Witherspoon & Eric Burdon.
There’s a contrast here, an understandable impatience with current events placed alongside belief in MLK’s vision of the long arc of the moral universe. Neither cancels the other.
On this disc, trumpeter, singer, and composer Sarah Wilson serves up music that is warm, a little funny at times, and very well played in an unassuming manner.
William Parker, the 69-year-old composer, multi-instrumentalist, author, and all-around presence on the progressive jazz scene churns out challenging music with prolific abandon.
To my ears, veteran guitarist John McLaughlin is both a jazz and a rock player, and more besides.
Davis solos less on Merci Miles than I wish he had, but he plays with precision, taste, and expression.
Long Tall Sunshine pulls off a delightful paradox: it combines in-your-face vigor with subtlety, probing free improvisations with appealing compositions.
Saxophonist Harold Land has been a major contributor to the rich tapestry of jazz. Check him out.
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