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Search Result for Artist joe mcphee
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BT 105LP
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Black Truffle welcome free jazz legend Joe McPhee back to the fold with Oblique Strategies, a wild trio recorded in Antwerp in 2018 in the company of Mette Rasmussen's fire-breathing alto saxophone and Dennis Tyfus's post-Fluxus antics on tape, voice, and percussion. Rasmussen and Tyfus have previously recorded together as Bazuinschal, and some similar strategies are on display here: mysterious metallic scrapes, extended tones in which voice and sax become indistinguishable, comic explosions of varispeed tape. With McPhee on board, however, proceedings are more sumptuous, with the two horns moving fluidly from expeditions into the extremes of their instruments' registers to pointillistic note-splatter and Ayler-esque folk melodies; we even get to bask in some of the slow-motion free blues that McPhee has now been playing for half a century. McPhee is heard primarily on tenor, Rasmussen mainly on alto, but with Rasmussen doubling on sundry objects, and the whole trio contributing vocals, certainty about who is doing what becomes nigh impossible. The recording and production add to this hazy unclarity. Where much contemporary improvised music aims at dryly clinical hi-fi, the lively reverberant space of Oblique Strategies calls to mind the less-than-pristine sonics of classic free jazz artifacts like John Tchicai's Afrodisiaca or McPhee's own Underground Railroad. Spread across four pieces ranging from four to nineteen minutes in length, Oblique Strategies moves with anarchic swagger from explosions of clattering cymbals and bellowing horns to near-silent episodes of mysterious rumble and clunk. "Death or Dinner?" opens the record with a lovely duet of climbing melodic patterns shared between the two saxophones, played with a buzzing oboe-like tone. A long, wavering note sung by Tyfus cues the first of countless changes of direction, eventually leading to a crescendo of watery splutters and dueling saxes. At points Tyfus's keening resemble the signature moves of his friend and collaborator, Ghédelia Tazartès; at others, his tape-sped huffs and puffs possess a rawness reminiscent of Henri Chopin or Gil Wolman. The dialogue between wailing saxophones and vocal cries, punctuated by percussive thuds and crashes, can at times feel less like a musical performance and more like the calls of some mysterious forest creatures. Oblique Strategies can also be delicate at times, as on the beautiful third piece, "Destilled Edible", dominated by a slow, microtonal melody played with a breathy tone resembling a shakuhachi. The closing side-long "Light My Fire" ranges across classic improv call and response, skittering trumpet blurts, inept cymbal clatter, mock-operatic vocals, and crude tape maneuvers. Oblique Strategies is an invigoratingly free-spirited blast of improvisation.
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GG 416CD
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"Joe McPhee, born 1939 in Florida, USA, is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, conceptualist and theoretician. He is currently the member of Trio X, Survival Unit III and has collaborated with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Raymond Boni, The Thing, Trespass Trio, and Universal Indians among many others. With a career spanning nearly 50 years and over 100 recordings, he continues to tour internationally, forge new connections and reach for music's outer limits. John Edwards is a true virtuoso on the double bass whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke and many others. In 2019, McPhee and Edwards met at Artacts festival in Austria and performed together as a duo for the first time. The concert was held at a public school with the duo performing in front of the Wilder Kaiser Mountain and left the audience stunned and speechless. This CD is a recording of this amazing concert. Joe McPhee plays sax and sings, John Edwards plays the double bass."
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CVSDLP 008LP
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In the year that Juneteenth was finally declared a national US holiday, 2021, Joe McPhee and Tomeka Reid united for a live concert in celebration. Multi-instrumentalist McPhee was deeply moved by the historical nature of the circumstances, the incredible freight of that history of oppression and liberation represented in the legislation, both the insanity of its overdue-ness and the joy of its institutionalization. As a preamble to the music, McPhee led off with two poems, read with trembling, vehement intensity: "Alone Together" and "Nation Time For Real This Time." Then, without a pause, they launched into a 33-minute duet for tenor saxophone and cello that gutted everyone in the packed audience, alighting for a brief segment on the late-19th century hymn "Lift Every Voice and Sing," the so-called African-American National Anthem, lyrics from which the title of the record is taken. At the concert's end, McPhee was nearly inconsolable, the immensity of the day and the emotion of the playing overtaking him alone in the dressing room. Let Our Rejoicing Rise is a kind of apotheosis, an outpouring of two sensitive souls at the dawn of a new day in an epoch of damnation. With a jubilant cover image by Gee's Bend quilter Mary Lee Bendolph, recorded and mastered by Alex Inglizian, it's a once-in-a-lifetime record.
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CVSD 085CD
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Two masters of wind instruments blowing in from the Windy City. In 2003, as part of the seventh annual Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music, Joe McPhee and Evan Parker squared off for a round of intimate dialogues. The resulting recording is just the second time they had played as a duet, the previous also being in Chicago, at a studio in 1998, where the limited their instrumentarium to tenor saxophones, resulting in the Okka Disc classic Chicago Tenor Duets (2002). In this case, they expanded their arsenal to include tenor and soprano saxophones, as well as McPhee's trusty pocket cornet. Held in a beautiful hall at the Chicago Cultural Center, the concert was unforgettable. Fortunately, it was documented by the legendary mobile recordist Malachi Ritscher, who recorded most of the Bottle Fests with his usual rough-and-ready style. From the opening notes, Sweet Nothings was notable for the musicians' intuitive connection. Freely improvised in seven parts, these are duets of the highest caliber performed by two musicians who are constantly seeking common ground -- what you might call "agree-to-agree" improvisors. But there's no lack of tension or productive dissonance; on the contrary, that's part of their unity of vision, the shared ability to diverge and reconnect.
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CVSDS 004EP
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Chicago-based saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark was invited to arrange a set of '70s music for a concert in 2019, and among the pieces he chose were tracks by funk legends Parliament and post-punk iconoclasts DNA. On this 12-inch 45rpm EP, Vandermark's band Marker presents a unique take on "Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples", drawn from Parliament's 1975 LP Mothership Connection, and DNA's "Egomaniac's Kiss", which first appeared on the classic 1978 Brian Eno-produced collection No New York. Together with the entire Marker lineup, featuring Vandermark on reeds, Andrew Clinkman and Steve Marquette on electric guitars, Macie Stewart on keyboards, and Phil Sudderberg on drums, on this one-of-a-kind affair Marker invited Poughkeespie (New York) icon Joe McPhee to be the proverbial fly in the ointment. Applying the most unhinged version of his tenor saxophone stylings to the deep groove of George Clinton and out-James-Chancing the no wave thump of Arto Lindsay, Ikue Mori, and Robin Crutchfield, this rare disco-single-format free music release is one for your record player's auto-changer -- just hit repeat! Featuring design and artwork by Michael Dyer/Remake, uncompromisingly recorded by Alex Inglizian at Corbett vs. Dempsey's Chicago gallery, as direct to you as humanly possible.
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CVSD 081CD
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Joe McPhee's response to the challenge of making a new CD of solo music during COVID was to go at it head on, to address the present in its starkest aspects, to reach for comfort in the music of great composers, and to speak directly to the virus in no uncertain terms. The result is unlike any other of McPhee's many records, a variety show of improvisations, favorite compositions, field recording, multi-tracking, incantation and recitation. After searching for the right studio-like setting with an ideal sound, but hampered by the restrictions of quarantine, he abandoned such hope and dug out a clothes closet in his Poughkeepsie house, where he could approach the task with an unconventional intimacy. In the dead of night, McPhee played luscious versions of compositions by Carla Bley and Charles Mingus, extrapolating on their melodies, even singing a Joni Mitchell lyric to Mingus's "Goodbye Porkpie Hat". Elsewhere he plays harrowing tenor saxophone improvisations, a plaintive tone entering his melancholic melodic sensibility. On the title track, McPhee layers a dozen aching blues lines atop a field recording of the namesake highway, and in another piece he discovers an entire drum choir in the noise of dripping water on a tin plate in his sink, something he dedicates to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose death was announced moments before he noticed the environmental sound. On one of several very short, intense tracks, McPhee literally attempts to reverse the virus by intoning a spell-like chant: "Out, damned bug/Out, damned bug!" The package includes extensive track-by-track liner notes and a poem by McPhee, with artwork and design by Christopher Wool.
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CVSDLP 001LP
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As well as being a return to public programming, this live event is also a record launch for The Mystery J, Corbett Vs. Dempsey's new vinyl LP which features improvised music by Joe McPhee, violist Jen Clare Paulson, and Brian Labycz on electronics. Recorded in 2014 at Okka Fest 6 in Milwaukee, it contains some of the most bristling trumpet work ever heard from McPhee's lips, in a super-responsive, sometimes uncommonly quiet musical context. Another side of the master improviser -- subtle dialogue with two younger maestros. Taking its title from the rum-running yacht on which McPhee's father sailed from Nassau to Miami, The Mystery J is CvsD's inaugural long-playing vinyl. Pressed in Chicago at Smashed Plastic and featuring a design with artwork by one of the original Chicago imagists, Richard Wetzel. You will be morose when you have missed your chance to spin it on your own home table, so as McPhee says don't postpone joy! Edition of 500.
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ESPDISK 5040CD
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From the producer's liner notes: "It is an interesting question how old 'free jazz' is. At some point, even a theme and a plan became optional. In the ESP-Disk' catalog, 'Taneou' on the Giuseppi Logan Quartet's eponymous album sounds like this approach of complete freedom starting from scratch; it was recorded on November 11, 1964. Joe McPhee, in 1967, appeared on Clifford Thornton's album Freedom and Unity, so his recording career covers 53 of those 56 years, 95% of the approach's history. Each succeeding decade found another player on this album joining the confraternity: Downs in 1976, Morris in 1983, and Belogenis in 1993. By that method of counting, there are 159 years of collective experience being heard on this album. Credits: Joe McPhee - tenor saxophone; Louie Belogenis - tenor and soprano saxophones; Joe Morris - bass; Charles Downs - drums. Cover painting: "tree bark & berries (for c.h.) #5," 2004, by Yuko Otomo. Recorded on January 11, 2020 by Jim Clouse at Park West Studios, Brooklyn NY. Produced by Steve Holtje.
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STSAFJ 302LP
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"Joe McPhee is a legend of modern music, which from the release of the classic Nation Time album almost 50 years ago has had an incredibly diverse career that's spanned a wide range of expressions, from jazz and improvised music to experimental and electronic free music. McPhee's life in music could basically be read as a map of leftfield music of our time, but after all these years he refuses to stand still or lock back with any sense of nostalgia. After 30 years of making electronic music Lasse Marhaug is now synonymous with Norwegian noise music, with hundreds of releases and countless collaborations and projects to his name, including music for film, theatre and dance. In the last ten years he has also made a name as a producer for other artists, including Jenny Hval and Okkyung Lee. McPhee and Marhaug has known each other since the early 2000s, but only in 2015 did they find time to record together as a duo. The result is Harmonia Macrocosmica, an album that the two considers a science fiction inspired work. For McPhee it can be read in the linage of his 70s work with John Snyder, as well as collaborations with Pauline Oliveros and the Nihilist Spams Band. Marhaug of course is well versed in this field, but McPhee's sax and voice puts his electronics in a whole new perspective. The pair also found inspiration in early electronic music and vintage science fiction films, with McPhee describing going to the cinema in the 50s as a kid to see Forbidden Planet and being blown away by its electronic score as the start of a lifelong love of cosmic music."
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2CD
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CVSD 069CD
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Never-before-issued music from three very different settings in upstate New York, all recorded in the period running up to Poughkeepsie multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's Nation Time (CVSD 054CD). From a year before that landmark LP, in the same hall at Vassar College, McPhee led a band with soulful vibraphonist Ernie Bostic and voluble rhythm section of Tyrone Crabb and Bruce Thompson, both of Nation Time fame, performing a John Coltrane-oriented set that included versions of Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue" and Coltrane's "Naima," as well as McPhee-fave "God Bless The Child." Deeply emotional and fiery playing with this unusual instrumentation -- rare to find McPhee playing with a harmonically based instrument like vibes. McPhee had organized a larger group also meant to feature Bostic and a French horn for a concert at a monastery in nearby New Windsor, but the band was pared down to a quartet with saxophonist Reggie Marks, playing a powerful combination of originals and the Patty Waters-associated traditional tune "Black Is The Color." (The concert also featured a cameo by David Nelson of the Last Poets, but technical issues in the recording scuttled that and several other tracks.) Finally, three cuts document a more rough-and-tumble gig taped outdoors in the park at Poughkeepsie's Lincoln Centre -- the only surviving recordings of this funky, bluesy, lowdown, explosive configuration, they feature vocals by one Octavius Graham, great drumming by Chico Hawkins, and Tyrone Crabb on electric bass. This two-CD set has been lovingly transferred from the original tapes out of from McPhee's personal archives, and is augmented by newly discovered photographs of the concerts. A spectacular deep dive into the pure magic of Mr. McPhee.
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ROKU 023CD
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Two totally infectious sets from Decoy -- the trio of John Edwards, Steve Noble, and Alexander Hawkins -- reunited with pocket trumpet and saxophone player Joe McPhee on the closing night of his four day residency at Cafe OTO. In the eight years between the recordings which make up AC/DC and their last release Spontaneous Combustion (ROKU 002CD, 2014), Decoy and each of its members have been practicing individually at the very top of their form. Coming together again in such celebratory circumstances and in the good company of a fantastic crowd set the scene for a very special night. As they begin, Alexander Hawkins casts a needling surface between his Hammond organ and John Edwards's loose splatters and slaps of low-end bass. McPhee skitters over them with his pocket trumpet by way of introduction; Steve Noble strikes his rims in anticipation. The first set sees moments of frenetic free jazz peel off into weirdo soul territory and when switched to saxophone halfway through, McPhee's romantic lyricism is utterly beautiful. When a groove sets in, Hawkins's B3 ascension in harmony with an ever-powerful Edwards-Noble rhythm section sees the room thicken and swirl to the point of giddiness. There is one unreal part at 22:22 where we're sure you can hear Edwards's bass vocalizing. Regrouped for a second set, Steve Noble's metallic textures meld with detuned arco bass to create an unholy atmosphere, ripe for Hawkins to play out the eerier end of the Hammond. When McPhee sounds a sax motif the band catches it quickly and it's soon wickedly morphed and stretched by each player, recurring to absurdity in a stoned-out funk free for all. The whole recording bleeds enthusiasm and joyful imagination and is a brilliant document of an unforgettable evening. Decoy are a limitless band who play nowhere near enough.
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CVSD 064CD
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Repressed. One day in the studio, something ridiculously great happened. It was deep Chicago winter, cold as shit. Four musicians assembled for a round-robin set of improvisations -- duets, trios, a few quartets. Approached casually, the late morning bloomed into Largest Afternoon, 15 crackling encounters between guitarist Arto Lindsay, saxophonists Joe McPhee, and Ken Vandermark, and drummer Phil Sudderberg. No expectations -- open minds and creative intent. Lindsay, a brilliant singer and songwriter and one of the key architects of no wave via his band DNA, has proven himself once again to be one of the world's top texturalists, and he is an equally sensitive and challenging group improvisor. Vandermark and McPhee brought their long friendship and musical partnership to the studio, and both engaged with Lindsay in different ways, bringing blue flame and melody. The session's final wildcard, Sudderberg, a versatile drummer who collaborates with Vandermark on the band Marker, brought a lovely sense of buoyancy and ear for contrast in colors, as well as a raucous rock pulse. With parts this stellar, imagine when Largest Afternoon > than the sum. Nobody knew this would happen.
Recorded February 9, 2019, at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago. Engineered by Alex Inglizian. Mixed and mastered by Alex Inglizian with Ken Vandermark, John Corbett, and Jim Dempsey at ESS. Photographs by John Corbett. Cover design by David Khan-Giordano. Produced by John Corbett and Jim Dempsey. Personnel: Arto Lindsay - guitar; Joe McPhee - alto and tenor saxophone, pocket trumpet; Ken Vandermark - tenor and baritone saxophone, clarinet; Phil Sudderberg, drums.
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CVSD 065CD
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Despite having worked together in innumerable settings, including the longstanding Survival Unit III, with drummer Michael Zerang, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee have never released a CD of duets. In an extra intimate studio setting in upstate New York, where both players reside, No Time Left for Sadness demonstrates their incredible musical understanding. Recalling some of McPhee's landmark records with Marseilles musicians in terms of telepathy and trust, it's an outing whose intensity is measured not in decibels, but in emotional integrity. Across three tracks of increasing length, culminating in the 31-minute-long adventure "Next Time," McPhee (hear featured on tenor saxophone exclusively) and Lonberg-Holm redefine chamber music, casting string and reed in a joyous and longing place, a rec room set aflame, a library engulfed in tidewater, a throbbing mezzanine. The cover and the CD face feature original stained-glass works by Lonberg-Holm, and the interior spread is entirely given over to an action shot of the duo by Stevphen Shukaitis.
Recorded at Lone Pine Studios, January 11, 2019. Engineered by Eli Winograd. Mixed by Fred Lonberg-Holm. Mastered by Alex Inglizian at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago. Photo of JM and FLH by Stevphen Shukaitis. Cover image: Gary Series #1, by Fred Lonberg-Holm. Personnel: Joe McPhee - tenor saxophone; Fred Lonberg-Holm cello/electronics.
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BT 054LP
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Black Truffle invite you to an evening of drunken revelry in the Batcave! After a chance meeting at a local supermarket in Poughkeepsie, New York, Joe McPhee and Graham Lambkin have performed together as a duo extensively in recent years, in addition to their joint work excavating some of the wildest tapes from McPhee's archive for Lambkin's now defunct Kye label. Live in the Batcave documents an evening the two friends spent together in the company of Joe's brother Charlie and Lambkin's son Oliver in November 2017 at Charlie's house in Poughkeepsie. The LP captures seven increasingly drunken snapshots of the four shooting the breeze, playing flutes and whistles, drumming on anything at hand, and playing records. Edited together in Lambkin's distinctive style of lo-fi domestic tape collage, the multiple simultaneous cassette recordings of the shenanigans abruptly cut in and out and fall out of sync, creating disorientating, woozy echoes. Mics are bumped, stories are told, drinks are poured, text messages arrive, and AACM-esque flute jams are interrupted by violent bursts of laughter and wet-mouthed sound poetry. All the while, classic soul records play, initially in the background, but coming increasingly to the fore until the record culminates in a strangely moving free-associative singalong. Live in the Batcave is a truly unique document that exists somewhere between free jazz, audio verité, performance art, and everyday life. File next to your copy of Das Kümmerling Trio. Gatefold sleeve with extensive photographic documentation and liner notes from Joe McPhee. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
"Our music was born from the sounds of jazz, funk, soul, noise -- sounds with no other reason so exist, except because they did, sounds which occurred like putting one step in front of the other to see if the way was clear to take the next step. The plan was, there is no plan, just start at the beginning, end at the end and party like it's 1999" --Joe McPhee.
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STSAFJ 200LP
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"Recorded in Oslo's small and intimate St. Edmund's Church the 13th of December 2017, this LP features compositions by James Weldon Johnson, Thelonious Monk and Joe McPhee plus two by McPhee and Nilssen-Love. The album was mixed, edited and mastered by Lasse Marhaug and is vinyl only, no digital. 500 copies made and no re-press. Artwork by Kim Hiorthøy."
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TROST 174CD
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At The Hill Of James Magee presents the duos complete performance at the extraordinary monument "The Hill" in the Chihuahuan Desert in the middle of nowhere in Texas. John Butcher and Joe McPhee had never shared a stage before which ended up being an attentive collaboration, starting with a long duo, alternating solo performances, and closing the atmospheric set with another duo. Personnel: Joe McPhee - alto sax; John Butcher - tenor sax.
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SV 164LP
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2023 repress. "'It's been nearly five decades since Joe McPhee assembled a group of musicians to perform the weekend concerts that would become Nation Time, his second LP. It was December 1970, thirty-one-year-old McPhee was inspired by Amiri Baraka's poem 'It's Nation Time,' and the students at Vassar College didn't know what hit them. 'What time is it?' shouted the bandleader. 'C'mon, you can do better than that. What time is it?!' The music on Nation Time came out of the fertile, but little-known creative jazz scene in Poughkeepsie, New York, McPhee's home base. Two bands were deployed, one with a funky free foundation featuring guitar and organ, the other consisting of a more standard jazz formation with two drummers and the brilliant Mike Kull at the piano. Across the concert and the next afternoon's audience-less recording session, the band was ignited by McPhee's passion and his gorgeous post-Coltrane / post-Pharoah tenor. On 'Shakey Jake,' they hit a James Brown groove filtered through Archie Shepp, while the sidelong title track is as searching and poignant today as it was during its heyday. Originally released in 1971 on CjR, an imprint started expressly to document McPhee's music, Nation Time has a sense of urgency and inspiration. Additional material from those December days would later appear on Black Magic Man, Hat Hut's first release. In fact, the first four records on this seminal Swiss label all featured McPhee. Nation Time was largely unknown a quarter century or so later, when it was first issued on CD through Atavistic's Unheard Music Series. On Corbett vs. Dempsey, we reissued the album along with all known tapes leading up to and around it as a deluxe box set, but the standalone LP has long remained incredibly rare. Now is the time for a new generation of freaks to lose their shit when settling into the cushy beat of 'Shakey Jake' and answer McPhee's call with the only appropriate response: It's NATION TIME.' --John Corbett."
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CVSD 053CD
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It's easy to be cynical these days, maybe difficult to imagine that music can change the world, but not for Joe McPhee and Hamid Drake. With Keep Going, they will make the planet a better place for humanity, a place to be humane, to preserve humankind. At 78 years old, Poughkeepsie multi-instrumentalist McPhee is a national treasure, and he's making more music than ever before, pushing himself to tour incessantly, issuing astonishing new records at a fierce rate. But this release, with legendary Chicago percussionist Drake, is something extremely special in the midst of many special records. The duo first recorded together in 1999, having only played together a limited number of times; the resulting music was issued as Emancipation Proclamation on the OkkaDisk label. When the opportunity arose to hit the studio for a second time, McPhee and Drake had two more decades of extensive work together under their belts, as members of the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet and in many other contexts. But the session somehow consolidated their shared energy in an unexpected way; the drummer's incredible warmth and sense of buoyancy, the saxophonist and trumpeter's preternatural musicality and quest for social justice. The recording started with McPhee reciting words by Harriett Tubman, resulting in the title track; Drake's support was an achingly slow Max Roach-like beat. From this inspired, inspiring starting point, the twosome frolicked through a rich program, McPhee donning tenor and alto saxes, and pocket trumpet, Drake turning momentarily to the frame drum. Each musician contributes an introspective solo track. McPhee at one point plays trumpet into an open gong, which gives him otherworldly overtones, a sort of acoustic version of electric Miles. Drake makes too few records, so anything of his is mandatory; McPhee's been on a roll lately, releasing lots of music, but Keep Going is one not to be missed.
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CVSD 055CD
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Some recordings, the world is just not ready for them when they're made. In 2008, Swedish born, Austrian resident saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and Poughkeepsie, New York multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee made a suite of studio recordings, Brace For Impact that they loved so much they immediately culled, mixed, and mastered them. A decade later, when the original label for which they were planned had not yet issued them, Gustafsson and McPhee offered them to Corbett Vs. Dempsey, and when the label couldn't believe the music. As searching and searing as anything either of them has made, the duets lived up to their explosive title. Gustafsson is known for his energy, and it's here in droves, but there are other nuances brought out by McPhee, a supple sense of melodicism (hey now, Gustafsson is a Swede, so by birthright he's melodic) and the love of experimental sound-making that McPhee displayed on his sound-on-sound recordings in the late 1960s. Although the two wind-players have worked together very extensively in Peter Brötzmann's large groups, with McPhee as a guest in Gustafsson's band The Thing, and in all manner of large and small group improvisations, they have never issued a record of duets before. This duo debut, now a decade in the can, is insanely powerful. Prepare yourself for the impact. Cover image by Charline von Heyl, interior photo of McPhee and Gustafsson bracing themselves back in 2002 by John Corbett. The package is completed by a haunting cover image by artist Cauleen Smith.
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CVSD 054CD
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2021 restock. Corbett Vs. Dempsey presents a reissue of Joe McPhee's Nation Time, originally issued in 1971. It's been nearly five decades since McPhee assembled a group of musicians to perform the weekend concerts that would become Nation Time, his second LP. It was December 1970; thirty-one-year-old McPhee was inspired by Amiri Baraka's poem It's Nation Time, and the students at Vassar College didn't know what hit them. "What time is it?", shouted McPhee. "Come on, you can do better than that. What time is it?!!" The music on Nation Time came out of a fertile, but little-known creative jazz scene in Poughkeepsie, New York, McPhee's home base. Two bands were deployed, one with a funky free foundation featuring guitar and organ, the other consisting of a more standard jazz formation, with two drummers and the brilliant Mike Kull at the piano. Across the concert and the next afternoon's audience-less recording session, the band was ignited by McPhee's passion and his gorgeous post-Coltrane/post-Pharoah tenor. On "Shakey Jake," they hit a James Brown groove filtered through Archie Shepp, while the sidelong title track is as searching and poignant today as it was during its heyday. Originally released in 1971 on CjR, an imprint started expressly to document McPhee's work, Nation Time has a sense of urgency and inspiration. Additional material from those December days would later appear on Black Magic Man (1975), Hat Hut's first release. In fact, the first four records on the seminal Swiss label all featured McPhee. Nation Time was largely unknown a quarter century or so later, when it was first issued on CD through the Unheard Music Series. On Corbett vs. Dempsey, the album was reissued along with all known tapes leading up to and around it as a CD box set (CVSD 011CD, 2017), but the standalone album has remained incredibly rare. In preparing to reissue the CD on its own, a new, previously unknown tape was discovered with three tracks recorded at the original concert in 1970. These include an intense version of Coltrane's "Naima"; all of them feature pianist Kull, and none have been issued before this. Personnel: Joe Mcphee - Tenor/soprano saxophones, trumpet; Mike Kull - piano, electric piano; Tyrone Crabb -, bass, electric bass, trumpet; Bruce Thompson - drums, percussion; Ernest Bostic - drums, percussion; Otis Greene - alto saxophone; Herbie Lehman - organ; Dave Jones - electric guitar.
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LP
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ROAR 046LP
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At age 78, Joe McPhee shows no sign of slowing down. Plan B is the master improviser's new trio, with James Keepnews on guitar and laptop and David Berger on drums. A soundtrack to a science fiction movie existing only in their heads, From Outer Space finds McPhee and company envisioning the first encounter between alien life and a delegation of earthlings (while giving a nod to jazz's original man from another planet, Sun Ra, with a side-long suite dedicated to him). It's quite unlike anything else in McPhee's vast discography. Cover art by Judith Lindbloom. Includes download coupon.
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CD
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CVSD 007CD
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2012 release. A reissue of Joe McPhee's Variations On A Blue Line / 'Round Midnight, originally released on Hat Hut Records in 1979. Variations On A Blue Line / 'Round Midnight was recorded in October, 1977, during a highly significant period in Poughkeespie, New York, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's work, as he was pioneering the transatlantic, collaborative spirit that has helped to define the last three decades of his career. Blue Line comes from a concert in Rouen, France, when McPhee played on a double bill with the Peter Brötzmann/Han Bennink duo. It features the side-length tenor excursion "Beanstalk" (dedicated to Coleman Hawkins), an alternate version of "Knox" (known from his beloved 1977 LP Tenor), and two soprano pieces, "Motian Studies" and Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight". This record come from a year-long run during which McPhee recorded and released four very different, extremely wonderful solo records, of which only Tenor has ever been reissued on CD. Along with the album Glasses (CVSD 006CD), this reissue was produced in collaboration with the seminal Swiss label Hat Hut Records and their chief, Werner X. Uehlinger. Recorded live by Claude Robert on October 11, 1977 at Salle Ste Croix des Pelletiers in Rouen, France. Personnel: Joe McPhee - tenor and soprano saxophone.
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CD
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CVSD 008CD
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2012 release. In 1981, Joe McPhee culled together one of his greatest bands to record Topology (1981), his classic outing for Hat Hut Records. Featuring an expanded version of Po Music, his ensemble with saxophonist André Jaume, guitarist Raymond Boni, and bassist François Mechali, the group included pianist Irene Schweizer, percussionist Pierre Favre, baritone saxophonist Daniel Bourquin, cellist Michael Overhage, and trombonist Radu Malfatti. One of the tracks left on the cutting room floor was a spectacular take on Ornette Coleman's composition "Lonely Woman", with McPhee on pocket cornet and haunting vocals by Tamia. Thirty one years later, Corbett Vs. Dempsey present The Loneliest Woman, the full, uncut, 13 glorious minutes of music, available on this CD single for the first time ever. Recorded in Boswil, Switzerland on March 25, 1981. Engineered by Peter Pfister; Session organized by Werner X. Uehlinger of Hat Hut Records; Remastered by Joe McPhee and Ted Orr at Sertso Studio, Woodstock, New York. Cover art by Margot Bergman.
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CD
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CVSD 006CD
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2012 release. A reissue of Joe McPhee's Glasses, originally released on Hat Hut Records in 1979. Glasses was recorded in October, 1977, during a highly significant period in McPhee's work, as he was pioneering the transatlantic, collaborative spirit that has helped to define the last three decades of his career. Documented in Tavannes, Switzerland, the set contains sensational tenor work, including the title piece, which finds McPhee ringing out a rhythm on a half-full wine glass, from which he extrapolates a melody on the saxophone, as well as a stunning version of John Coltrane's "Naima". The final 15 minutes are spent in duet with the Swiss percussionist Reto Weber, who was so inspired by McPhee he asked to sit in and did so with his quite extensive battery of drums. This record come from a year-long run during which McPhee recorded and released four very different, extremely wonderful solo records, of which only Tenor has ever been reissued on CD. Along with the 1979 album Variations On A Blue Line / 'Round Midnight (CVSD 007CD), this reissue was produced in collaboration with the seminal Swiss label Hat Hut Records and their chief, Werner X. Uehlinger. Recorded live by Werner X. Uehlinger on October 13, 1977 at Cafe Calvado, Switzerland. Personnel: Joe McPhee - tenor saxophone, flugelhorn, percussion; Reto Weber - percussion.
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2CD
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CVSD 006A-CD
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2010 release. Poughkeepsie, New York multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee organized a great double-bill at Vassar College in 1970, featuring himself and his local underground jazz peers. One disc in the two CD set of previously unreleased music consists of a complete set of music by McPhee's quintet -- wild and deeply soulful free jazz quite close in spirit to McPhee's legendary 1971 debut, Nation Time (CVSD 011CD), with clear connections to Pharoah Sanders. On the other disc, a simmering Hammond B-3 set introduces the Ernie Bostic Quartet and serves as an on-the-ground, in-the-crib soul-jazz foil to McPhee's political and astral explorations. Recorded April 30, 1970. Ernie Bostic Quartet: Ernie Bostic, Otis Greene, Herbie Leaman, and Charlie Benjamin; Joe McPhee Quintet: Joe McPhee, Byron Morris, Mike Kull, Tyrone Crabb, and Bruce Thompson.
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