In the monthly The Necessary Blues album roundup, we typically cover new releases. However, this month we’ll highlight some recent reissues of out of print albums and first issues of historically important music that has never seen the light of day until now. Next month we’ll catch up with new albums, and we’ll plan on an additional mid month album roundup to bring us up to date. For now, enjoy some lost classics!
Don Cherry – The Summer House Sessions
(released June 18, 2021 – recorded July 20, 1968 at Kummelnäs, Sweden by Göran Freese)
Don Cherry – pocket trumpet, flutes, percussion
Bernt Rosengren – tenor saxophone, flutes, clarinet
Tommy Koverhult – tenor saxophone, flutes
Leif Wennerström – drums
Torbjörn Hultcrantz – bass
Jacques Thollot – drums
Kent Carter – bass
Bülent Ateş – hand drum, trap drums
Don Cherry’s New Researches featuring Naná Vasconcelos – Organic Music Theatre: Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon 1972
(released June 18, 2021, recorded live in 1972)
Don Cherry – piano, harmonium, tanpura, vocals
Naná Vasconcelos – berimbau, percussion
Christer Bothén -donso ngoni, piano, light percussion
Doudou Gouirand – soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, light percussion
Moki Cherry – tanpura, vocals, scenography
Annie Hedvard and Det Lilla Cirkus – puppet theater
Friends from Tågarp: Marianne Rydvall (additional and unintentional vocals), Craig, and other unknown characters
Driving home on a rainy summer afternoon I put on Don Cherry’s Organic Music Theatre at Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon 1972. By the time I reached the reprise of “Elixir”, a giant rainbow shot through the clouds, as the mist from a late summer shower lifted off the ground. This could be no simple coincidence – the healing power from Don Cherry’s music summoned this rainbow into existence! I don’t think my reverie was out of place – Cherry’s music from the 70’s embodies this interconnectedness between musical gestures, theater, spirituality, and the universal.
This summer has given us two lost Don Cherry masterpieces. Summer House captures Cherry when he was living in Sweden in 1968, where he spent weeks rehearsing European musicians on his musical concepts. This culminated in the recording of the Summer House sessions, which were promptly lost for over 50 years until the tapes were discovered in the vaults of the Swedish Jazz Archive. Thank heavens they were found – while the additional tracks are unnecessary, on “Side A” the music that enfolds is pastoral and beautiful, and “Side B” moves swiftly through a kaleidoscope of interesting ideas. These musical suites are in the style of Cherry’s landmark Symphony for Improvisers, and worthy heirs to that great album.
Organic Music Theatre (which summoned my rainbow) is even more remarkable. By 1972 Cherry had moved beyond “jazz” altogether. Here he ditches his pocket trumpet in favor of singing, keyboards and leading (with his partner Moki Cherry) a community of percussionists, puppeteers, travelers from Sweden and an audibly enchanted all age audience. One wonders what a regular jazz festival attendee stumbling on Cherry’s troupe would think after seeing somebody like Martial Solal. I would like to think newcomers would have been disarmed by the directness and openness of this transcendent music.
Sun Ra – Lanquidity (Definitive Edition)
(released June 25, 2021; recorded July 17, 1978)
Sun Ra – organ, synthesizer, piano, arranger, keyboards, Hammond organ, electric piano, vocals, bells, Arp, Fender Rhodes, orchestra bells, Mini Moog
John Gilmore – tenor saxophone
Danny Ray Thompson – flute, baritone saxophone
Eddie Gale – trumpet
Michael Ray – trumpet, flugelhorn
Marshall Allen – flute, oboe, alto saxophone
Luqman Ali – percussion
Michael Anderson – percussion
Artaukatune – drums, tympani
Disco Kid (Slo Johnson) – guitar
Dale Williams – guitar
Atakatun Odun – congas
Elo Omoe – Flute, bass clarinet
Julian Pressley – baritone saxophone
Richard Williams – bass
James Jacson – oboe, basson, flute, voices
June Tyson – voices
Recorded on the heels of Sun Ra’s appearance on Saturday Night Live (you can view the whole SNL episode here and here), this Sun Ra album deserves it’s heavy reputation. The music is very accessible too. This issue presents the original album mix and a second remixed version of the album that was prepared contemporaneously, but only released at one 1978 Arkestra gig at Georgia Tech. With the remixed versions, you get a terrific mirror image of the same material, that makes you go back and forth from the originals and then back to the remixes again! Incredibly, the Sun Ra Arkestra is still going under the leadership of 97 year old Marshall Allen. See them if you can, and check out last year’s excellent Swirling.
Annette Peacock – The Perfect Release
(released May 14, 2021)
Annette Peacock – vocals, producer
Robert Ahwai – guitar
Max Middleton – keyboards
John McKenzie – bass
Richard Bailey – drums
Darryl Lee Que – percussion
Lennox Langton – steel drums, percussion
Annette Peacock is super cool, and those fans hip enough to know these records are too. Now the rest of the world has a chance to catch up with the reissue of 1979’s The Perfect Release (it is!) and X-Dreams from the year before. I’ve been dancing to “Solar Systems” since I first heard it. Next stop: please re release Peacock’s out of print 1980’s albums!
Joe Henderson – The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions
(release April 18, 2021)
Joe Henderson (tenor sax) with various ensembles
At TNB we have not written about the great Mosaic Records, and we’ll need to remedy that. Mosaic was founded in 1983 with the purpose of issuing then out of print jazz classics. Their first issue was the Thelonious Monk Blue Notes. Since then this small Connecticut based record label has produced 168 of their deluxe big box sets, each a definitive look at a slice of an artist’s career. Every Mosaic fan has their favorites. At TNB, we are really partial to the Woody Shaw Muse, the Ahmad Jamal Argo sessions, and the recent Hank Mobley Blue Notes.
Joe Henderson is overdue for the Mosaic treatment! On The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions, and as always, Henderson’s playing astounds. There is no musician who is more in the moment and who’s playing yields more surprises note for note. Mosaic’s website says they used the same process to transfer the CDs from the original Blue Note tapes as they did on the terrific Hank Mobley set. I can attest the sound on the Mobley set is great, and I trust this one is too. JoeHen lives!
Roy Brooks – Understanding
(released July 23, 2021; Recorded Live at The Famous Ballroom in Baltimore, MD on November 1, 1970)
Roy Brooks – drums
Carlos Garnett – tenor saxophone
Woody Shaw – trumpet
Harold Mabern – piano
Cecil McBee – bass
The sweaty picture on the cover of this album says a lot about the fiery music contained within. Leader Brooks and this whole band are in great form on these extended live performances, but to these ears the main draw is Woody’s Shaw’s majestic trumpet. Check out Shaw’s electrifying solo on the title track. Smoking stuff. The receptive audience is like a sixth band member, their audible reactions and contributions are part of the fun. You can literally hear minds being blown on the frenetic version of Shaw’s “Zoltan.” This is another set of tapes rescued from oblivion and issued 50 years later – good to have it.
Joe McPhee – Black Is The Color: Live in Poughkeepsie and New Windsor, 1969-70
(released May 31, 2021; Concert 1 Recorded October 23, 1969 at Chicago Hall, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY; Concert 2 Recorded January 12, 1969, at St. Helena Convent, New Windsor, NY; Concert 3 Recorded May 24, 1970 at Lincoln Center, Poughkeepsie, NY)
Personnel:
Concert 1:
Joe McPhee – trumpet, tenor, and soprano saxophone
Tyrone Crabb – bass
Ernest Bostic – vibes
Bruce Thompson – drums
Concert 2:
Joe McPhee – tenor saxophone, trumpet
Reggie Marks – tenor saxophone, flute
Tyrone Crabb – bass
Bruce Thompson – drums
Concert 3:
Joe McPhee – tenor saxophone
Mike Kull – piano
Tyrone Crabb – electric bass
Chico Hawkins – drums
Octavius Graham – vocals
Strangely I missed this album in my rundown of Joe McPhee in Jazz from Poughkeepsie. This 2 CD set is more of the same, so if you liked Nation Time, this is for you too. CD 1 is another Concert from Vassar, this one a year before the Nation Time concert. McPhee starting with “God Bless the Child” is a revelation – there’s a clear line between his playing here and his later treatment of blues and spirituals, such as with Trio X. This issue also documents two other concerts from the same era. More proof that McPhee arrived fully formed as a jazz great.