CJ this week had exciting new music from drummer and pianist Jack DeJohnette from his new Sound Travels release which includes some impressive guests. The first track is a reworking of a DeJohnette composition which first surfaced on his excellent Parallel Realities album with Pat Metheny and Herbie Hancock. Slightly older music was represented on a new jazz funk compilation from BGP Records with some surprising inclusions – like the Azar Lawrence track Novo Ano featured in this week’s show.
There was more too from the highly recommended Cosmic disc from vocal elder statesman Dwight Trible and a further track from Be Good, the rather disappointing sophomore release from next generation singer Gregory Porter. Sometimes the old guys can show the younger ones how to do it…
Also included in tonight’s show was one of Wayne Shorter’s most lasting compositions, the title track from the 1964 Blue Note album Speak No Evil, featuring the classic lineup of Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Elvin Jones.
- Dwight Trible – Speak to Us of Love
- Gregory Porter – Be Good (Lion’s Song)
- Jack DeJohnette – Indigo Dreamscapes
- Azar Lawrence – Novo Ano
- Max Roach – Members, Don’t Git Weary
- Lloyd McNeill Quartet – Washington Suite
- Zara McFarlane – Feed the Spirit (The Children and the Warlock)
- Wayne Shorter – Speak No Evil
- Albert Ayler – Zion Hill (alternate take)
- Sonny Rollins – Pictures in the Reflection of a Golden Horn
- Dwight Trible – Its’s All About Love
- Jack DeJohnette – Sonny Light
- Steve Colson and the Unity Troupe – Lateen
It was good to see publicity for Cosmic Jazz in the latest edition of Jazz UK and it has led to some interesting contacts including Steve Tromans who has informed us about his four-movement suite called Musickosmos (see YouTube clip below) .The last movement of the suite ‘Musickosmos’ written by Steve Tromans. The work as a whole is dedicated to Sun Ra and to Carl Sagan, and the last movement was prefaced by a reading of some of the text attached to the Voyager space probes, launched into the Cosmos in the 1970sand which now have left the solar system on their cosmic journey of hope and universal friendship. The text read was the following, from then US president, Jimmy Carter.
“This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations”.
Frank Ames has also made contact about his Jazz Spectrum show on Holton Community Radio (www.HCR923.com) which is broadcast from 18:00 – 20:00 on Tuesday nights. There is probably by now a network of jazz shows on community radio across the country and it would be good to hear about them. Please get in touch via this blog if you know of any.