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Bitches Brew [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] [EXTRA TRACKS]
Miles Davis

Jazz Music - Miles Davis - Bitches Brew [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] [EXTRA TRACKS] Cd

The revolution was recorded: in 1969 Bitches Brew sent a shiver through a country already quaking. It was a recording whose very sound, production methods, album-cover art, and two-LP length all signaled that jazz could never be the same. Over three days anger, confusion, and exhilaration had reigned in the studio, and the sonic themes, scraps, grooves, and sheer will and emotion that resulted were percolated and edited into an astonishingly organic work. This Miles Davis wasn't merely presenting a simple hybrid like jazz-rock, but a new way of thinking about improvisation and the studio. And with this two-CD reissue (actually, this set is a reissue of the original set plus one track, perfect for the fan who's not so overwhelmed as to need the four-CD Complete Bitches Brew box), the murk of the original recording is lifted. The instruments newly defined and brightened, the dark energy of the original comes through as if it were all fresh. Joe Zawinul and Bennie Maupin's roles in the mix have been especially clarified. With a bonus track of "Feio"--a Wayne Shorter composition recorded five months later that serves both as a warm-down for Bitches Brew and a promise of Weather Report to come--this is crucial listening.

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Conversations
Archie Shepp, Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio

Jazz Music - Archie Shepp, Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio - Conversations Cd

This recording brings together two generations of the avant-garde, with the '60s John Coltrane-tutored tenor saxophonist-educator Archie Shepp teaming up with the Chicago-based Ritual Trio. Led by drummer-percussionist Kahil El'Zabar, the trio, with tenor saxophonist-pianist Ari Brown and bassist Malachi Favors, provides the perfect rhythmic and harmonic canvas for Shepp's stratospheric sax flights. As to be expected, 'Trane's spirit dominates the session, as evidenced by the florid, McCoy Tyner-like passages on "Crescent" and the vibe on "Conversations 1/The Introduction," "Whenever I Think of You," and "Revelations," which features Brown's smoother lines. Brown's elliptical solos illuminate the neoboppish "Kari," while Shepp's wails on "Conversations 2/The Dialogue" fly over the rhythm section's straight-ahead groove. El'Zabar's hand-drummed, Afro-anthems with Shepp and company's blues-tinged vocals choreograph the diaspora dances of "Big Fred," for the late bassist Fred Hopkins, and "Brother Malcolm," for Malcolm X. This dates proves that the avant-garde is alive and well in founding fathers like Archie Shepp, and in disciples like the Ritual Trio.

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Pleasant Valley
Javon Jackson

Jazz Music - Javon Jackson - Pleasant Valley Cd

Tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson and cohorts have found plenty of fertile ground in Pleasant Valley. Using Larry Goldings's down-home organ as a backdrop and Dave Stryker's light-fingered guitar as a foil, Jackson has managed to evoke the creative days of early fusion (in particular, the Tony Williams Lifetime) while fitting in perfectly with the lounge-jazz mainstream. Jackson has a dollop of funk in his sophisticated tone, which he adds judiciously, giving a little juice to his complex, serpentine lines. Combine this with the sensitive interaction of the group, the relative rhythmic freedoms of drummer Billy Drummond, and the psychedelic rock-guitar effects, and you have much more than a mere copy of the '50s organ-tenor sound. What you have is a cauldron of creative possibilities welded to an earthy, unhurried feel. And that feeling is, indeed, a pleasant one: a form of relaxed stimulation.

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Pre-Bird [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]
Charles Mingus

Jazz Music - Charles Mingus - Pre-Bird [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] Cd

This odd 1960 session falls historically between the astounding late-1959 work Charles Mingus did for Columbia Records and his slimmed-down pianoless quartet that made the classic Mingus at Antibes. Pre Bird and the Columbia material share some common elements, most obviously the large ensemble. Mingus devoted these sessions to his pre-1940s material and other works from the prebop era, and two of the best-played works are from Ellington's pen. Both "Take the 'A' Train" and "Do Nothin' Till You hear from Me" are taken at a distinctly Mingus pace, with Ellington's polyphony heightened and the tension increased considerably by the more-pouncing band here. "Prayer for Passive Resistance" shows the same pounce, as does "Mingus Fingus No. 2," and both sound looser and more free-associative in the soloing than the Columbia work. Two additional highlights are "Weird Nightmare" and the third-stream-colored "Half-Mast Inhibition" (conducted by Gunther Schuller), which keens and squirrels about just off-center from either tonality or atonality. As for the band, it's got all the usual suspects and more: Eric Dolphy and Booker Ervin are the reed section's towering talents, and as always, Dannie Richmond keeps the drummed time. For Mingus fans, this is a welcome issue.

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Simpatico
Vandermark 5

Jazz Music - Vandermark 5 - Simpatico Cd

Clarinetist and tenor saxophonist Ken Vandermark has such broad tastes that he has played in up to 18 ensembles at the same time, each with a different stylistic focus. The Crown Royals churn out gutbucket R&B, the AALY Trio revisits '60s-informed free jazz, and the Chicago Bridge Unit plays standards from the '50s and '60s. This quintet is where he puts it all together by playing complex original compositions that integrate swinging rhythms, feedback-laden rock textures, and free-form dynamics. Several tunes express a film noir ambiance that resonates with the disc's handsome packaging and betrays Vandermark's past as a film major in college, but the band plays them with a gritty pugnacity that is emphatically contemporary. The album's name acknowledges the well-oiled chemistry that the quintet has developed on the job by playing a weekly gig at Chicago's Empty Bottle for over three years. The group negotiates the difficult transitions between Vandermark's complex, colorful horn charts and collectively improvised passages with deceptive ease.

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