CD-Charts Position 181
Average Rating:

The Out-of-Towners

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette

Release Date August 31, 2004
Another fabulous album from the standards trio. The recordings were made in 2001 and clearly Jarrett is fully recovered from his illness of the late 90's as the inspiration level remains incredibly high throughout.

The 'standards' here are all very good, but the main reason to buy this recording is the great title track. This runs to nearly 20 minutes and runs through a number of styles, the dominant one being a long bluesy improvisation 6 minutes into the track.

Its difficult to rank this in the huge number of albums that the standards trio have produced over the years, but if you can only buy one, then this is as good as anything.

CD-Charts Position 182
Average Rating:

Ascension

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: John Coltrane

Release Date June 06, 2000
While Ascension is commonly referred to as the album which marked Coltrane's irrevocable leap into free jazz, it's not altogether that simple. While the ensemble passages are certainly very intense and sound chaotic, they are in fact based on a sequence of four tonal centers. Certainly much freer than chords, freely interpreted, and somewhat obscured by the presence of so many horns, they are definitely present and discernible without too much difficulty. As such, the ensemble interludes all sound very similar to each other, with notable differences in the opening and closing sections.

The other paradox is that the underpinning is none other than the classic Coltrane rhythm section of McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones, augmented ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 183
Average Rating:

Love Will Find a Way

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Pharoah Sanders

Release Date October 25, 2005
... than this admittedly softer, more radio-friendly incarnation of Pharoah. But like fellow saxophonist Gato Barbieri, the Little Rock native's sound ( and compositional approach) remains intact-occasionally sappy trappings notwithstanding... Like middle age, this date has grown on me.

CD-Charts Position 184
Average Rating:

Balladyna

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Tomasz Stanko

Release Date September 30, 2008
... than this admittedly softer, more radio-friendly incarnation of Pharoah. But like fellow saxophonist Gato Barbieri, the Little Rock native's sound ( and compositional approach) remains intact-occasionally sappy trappings notwithstanding... Like middle age, this date has grown on me.

CD-Charts Position 185
Average Rating:

Andrew!!!

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Andrew Hill

Release Date October 04, 2005
Recorded on 6/25/64, Andrew!!! is comprised of Andrew piano & compositions, John Gilmore tenor saxophone, Richard Davis bass, Bobby Hutcherson vibraphone and Joe Chambers trap drums.

Both as one of Andrew's and Blue Note's best albums, this is worth all the time and consideration you can give it. If you only know Gilmore from Sun Ra, or if you don't know Gilmore because of Sun Ra, here's your chance to hear him in a setting that's less controversial than another of Andrew's classics, Compulsion, and better sonic quality than almost (or maybe all) all Sun Ra anywhere ever. Man does Gilmore GET IT. He and Dolphy (and Sam Rivers, though Change feels more like a Sam Rivers album than an Andrew Hill) are, for me, the 2 best saxophonists with whom Andrew ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 186
Average Rating:

Transition

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: John Coltrane

Release Date May 25, 1993
This CD version is better than the original LP because of its inclusion of Welcome. This is the best post-Love Supreme Coltrane, and one of the best avant garde jazz albums of all time. If you like Coltrane, you must own this. I would rank it as my second favorite Trane album right behind Love Supreme. Very beautiful and very moving.

CD-Charts Position 187
Average Rating:

Life in Leipzig

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Ketil Bjørnstad, Terje Rypdal

Release Date April 15, 2008
I will admit at the outset I have an uncommon devotion to ECM Records; there are very few that I think are real clunkers. Most have at least something interesting. In any event this one is special -- a gorgeous live recording of a performance given in October 2005. 11 tracks, performed by the guitarist Terje Rypdal and the classically trained pianist Ketil Bjornstad, most of which run continuously into the next. Still, there is great range here, both in the songs, which sound alternately like jazz, rock, and classical -- and to be forthright, occasionally veer close to new age, but which never devolve into vapid atmospherics -- and the playing, especially Rypdal's, who can work with long, smooth lines; sharp, cutting riffs; and deep, broad layers of sound. Very pretty, but also ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 188
Average Rating:

Sangam

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Charles Lloyd

Release Date April 04, 2006
I just got this from my friend Charles Lloyd's office!

"The Nobel Committee has requested Charles Lloyd and SANGAM, with Zakir Hussain and Eric Harland to perform during the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo on December 10th."

What a gig!
Bill Donoghue

CD-Charts Position 189
Average Rating:

Fascinoma

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Jon Hassell, Ry Cooder, Jacky Terrasson

Release Date June 22, 1999
This is a great record. Engineer Kavi Alexander and his tube equipment captures Hassell's harmonic trumpet like nobody else has before, and pianist Jacky Terrasson sounds stunning, full, vigorous. As compared to, say, "Fourth World Volume 1; Possible Music," or "Aka Darbari Java" "Fascinoma" is relatively tame, and perhaps more jazz then ambient, but the lines blur and categories demonstrate their uselessness with an artist like Jon Hassell.

My question is this: Since Water Lily made another album from the same session into an SACD ("Hollow Bamboo by Ronu Majundar,) then why not the increased realism afforded by the SACD for "Fascinoma"?
We need some ambient SACDs

CD-Charts Position 190
Average Rating:

Nonaah

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Roscoe Mitchell

Release Date August 26, 2008
This is a great record. Engineer Kavi Alexander and his tube equipment captures Hassell's harmonic trumpet like nobody else has before, and pianist Jacky Terrasson sounds stunning, full, vigorous. As compared to, say, "Fourth World Volume 1; Possible Music," or "Aka Darbari Java" "Fascinoma" is relatively tame, and perhaps more jazz then ambient, but the lines blur and categories demonstrate their uselessness with an artist like Jon Hassell.

My question is this: Since Water Lily made another album from the same session into an SACD ("Hollow Bamboo by Ronu Majundar,) then why not the increased realism afforded by the SACD for "Fascinoma"?
We need some ambient SACDs