Julius Hemphill - Reflections

Julius Hemphill - Reflections
Жанр: Free Jazz
Страна-производитель диска: USA
Год издания диска: 1995
Издатель (лейбл): Freedom
Номер по каталогу: 741012-2
Аудио кодек: APE (*.ape)
Тип рипа: image+.cue
Битрейт аудио: (lossy + lossless)
Продолжительность: 00:42:56
: barin99
: да
Треклист:
1. Reflections (2:32)
2. Lyric (7:31)
3. Skin 1 (10:12)
4. Skin 2 (2:32)
5. The Hard Blues (20:07)
Recorded Archway Studios, St. Louis, MO, February 1972 C.I. Studios, New York City, NY, January 29, 1975
The album was originally issued on LP by the name of Coon Bid'ness
Personnel:
Julius Hemphill — Sax (Alto)
Arthur Blythe — Sax (Alto)
Hamiet Bluiett — Sax (Baritone)
Baikida Carroll — Trumpet
Abdul Wadud — Cello
Barry Altschul — Drums
Phillip Wilson — Drums
Daniel Ben Zebulon — Conga

Лог создания рипа (EAC Log)

Содержание индексной карты (.CUE)

AMG

Hemphill was best known for his work with the World Saxophone Quartet — he was arguably the band's most distinctive writer — but his work as an improvising saxophonist and composer encompassed a variety of other contexts over the course of his career. Hemphill worked with everything from big bands to duos; he especially excelled at composing for unusual instrumental combinations. Hemphill's primary instrument was the alto; he had a huge, somewhat harsh tone, almost as if he were playing a horn made out of a steel pipe with a sax mouthpiece attached. He possessed a formidable technique and a fertile imagination. The latter probably best manifested itself in his compositions, in which he merged his jazz roots with European classical and African influences.
Hemphill's first instrument was the clarinet. He played bari saxophone in high school; purportedly, he fostered a musical infatuation with Gerry Mulligan. In Fort Worth, he studied with the renowned jazz clarinetist John Carter and played with local rhythm blues bands. Hemphill joined the army in 1964. Upon his discharge, he played for a time with Ike Turner, then moved to St. Louis in 1968. There he became involved with the Black Artists Group, a new music collective that also included Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, Joseph Bowie, and Baikida Carroll, among others. Hemphill formed his own record company, Mbari, to document his music. His '70s Mbari releases, Dogon A.D. and Blue Boyé, proved to be quite influential, affecting the later work of such disparate artists as Dave Sanborn and Tim Berne.
Hemphill moved to New York in the mid-'70s. There he became active in loft sessions and recorded as a sideman with Anthony Braxton and Lester Bowie. Around this time, he also recorded for the Arista/Freedom label. In 1976, he formed the World Saxophone Quartet with Lake, Bluiett, and David Murray, which would prove to be the most commercially successful and long-lasting of his performing units. In the '70s and '80s, Hemphill played and recorded fairly often for several labels, almost always under his own leadership. His 1980 album, Flat Out Jump Suite (Black Saint), with cellist Abdul Wadud, cornetist Olu Dara, and percussionist Warren Smith, was critically praised, as was his concurrent work with the WSQ. In the late '80s, Hemphill and the WSQ began an association with the Elektra label, which led to a number of well-distributed and aesthetically rewarding albums. In 1988, Hemphill got his one and only chance to record his big band compositions, on the album Julius Hemphill Big Band (Elektra/Musician).
Hemphill left the WSQ in the early '90s, thus weakening the ensemble from a conceptual standpoint. He went on to form his own all-sax group — a sextet — which included such players as Marty Ehrlich, Andrew White, and a young James Carter. The band made a pair of albums: Fat Man and the Hard Blues, recorded in 1991, and Five Chord Stud, recorded in 1993. Hemphill's presence on the latter was as a composer only; a worsening medical condition had by this time forced him to stop playing.
Hemphill also had a strong interest in theatre. He incorporated theatrical elements into his 1977 album Roi Boyé and the Gotham Minstrels and in the '80s he composed an extended work entitled Long Tongues, which he called a saxophone opera. Hemphill's death in 1995 prematurely curtailed the career of one of free jazz's most visionary composers.

About

Album Notes
Personnel: Julius Hemphill, Black Arthur Blythe (alto saxophone); Hamiet Bluiett (baritone saxophone); Baikida E. J. Carroll (trumpet); Abdul Wadud (cello); Barry Altschul, Phillip Wilson (drums); Daniel Ben Zebulan (congas).
Producers: Michael Cuscuna, Julius Hemphill.
Recorded at C.I. Studios, New York, New York on January 29, 1975 and Archway Studios, St. Louis, Missouri in February 1972.
Personnel: Julius Hemphill (flute, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone); Baikida Carroll (trumpet); Phillip Wilson (drums); Daniel Ben Zebulon (congas).
Recording information: Archway Studios, St. Louis, MO (02/1972); C.I.Studios, New York, NY (01/1975).
The February 1972 session which yielded The Hard Blues and the equally remarkable Dogon A.D. portray a film noir ambience and cinematic sensibility that transcend their lo-fi surroundings in much the same way as '50 blues recordings. Using a mixture of post-Coltrane modernism and delta blues primitivism, alto saxophonist/composer Julius Hemphill struck a raw nerve with generations of musicians and listeners, forging a musical mini-movement that transcended labels and categories.
Originally released in the early '70s on Hemphill's own Mbari label, these St. Louis sessions were re-released on Freedom in the late '70s as DOGON A.D. and COON BID'NESS, at the height of New York's loft jazz scene. COON BID'NESS has now been reissued as REFLECTIONS, which is comprised of four New York performances from 1975 that act as an emotional prelude for The Hard Blues. Reflections and Lyric illustrate Hemphill's distinctive feel for modern harmony, moving from painterly tone poems to the ceremonial rhythms of Abdul Wadud and drummer Barry Altschul on Skin 1, which trigger a series of polytonal transformations and fierce exchanges, concluding with the collective affirmation of Skin 2.
The Hard Blues transports the listener into a world of rite and ritual so mysterious you can practically see blood on the moon. Proceeding from an enigmatic blues vamp, Hemphill's chanting theme explodes into a cubist seven beat transition and a caterwauling freebop release. Hemphill's bluesy gestures and a torchy sustained cry conclude with a vocal shrug, as if to wipe away a solitary tear. He then launches into a series of harrowing testimonies, mixing guitar-like runs and fierce altissimo hollers with majestic, incantory phrases, as Wadud and Wilson delineate a ghostly backbeat. With each pass, Hemphill's phrases become more contorted, alternating between guttural cries and wistful boppish elisions, concluding with throttled weeping, as if the speaker's time on Earth had drawn nigh.

Customer Reviews @

5.0 out of 5 stars - A musical epiphany in the avant blues., July 2, 2001
By: greg taylor (Portland, Oregon United States)
I heartily agree with all of the prior reviewers. I first heard this album when it came out as Coon Bidness on the great Arista Freedom Label and it changed the standards by which I judge all other music. This is truely one of the great documents of Avant Garde music in the last four decades. It is as great in its own way as Coltrane's Ascension or Coleman's Free Jazz although earthier than either of those two albums. It is impossible to describe the beauty of the combination of Wadud's cello and Hemphill's alto. This is one of the albums that I will play when I try to introduce someone to avant garde jazz (I also recommend Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds for this purpose). I also find it useful to play The Hard Blues for people right after I play Funky Blues from Charlie Parker's great JATP recording Jam Session. There is a lineage here in heartfelt blues that runs from Johnny Hodges thru Benny Carter thru Charlie Parker thru Jackie McLean thru Ornette Coleman thru Archie Shepp thru Anthony Braxton and Julius Hemphill. Play the two tunes back to back and see i