modal jazz Archives - JAZZ IMPRESSIONS

George Duke – Peace

Our last post looked at Billy Cobham’s fusion classic ‘Heather’ from his album Crosswinds (1974) which featured the mellow tones of keyboardist George Duke. Flashing back a couple of years earlier to January 1971, a young George Duke had just left Frank Zappa’s group The Mothers Of Invention and joined saxophonist Cannonball Adderley’s new quintet, replacing pianist Joe Zawinul. The months that followed would prove formative for this young pianist and in this year he recorded two albums: Solus and The Inner Source, originally intended to be two separate albums but were later merged, released on German jazz label MPS in 1973.

Pete La Roca – Lazy Afternoon

One of the many attractive qualities of jazz, more than any other musical genre, is how the same song can be interpreted in many different ways. Whether this is Bill Evans and Yusef Lateef offering their personal takes on a classic soundtrack, or Ahmad Jamal and Bobby Hutcherson reworking a Herbie Hancock original, the musical freedom that underpins jazz allows its musicians to constantly reinvent and offer fresh perspectives on popular classics. In his last post, Dan wrote on guitarist Grant Green’s version of the ballad ‘Lazy Afternoon’. Whilst Green’s version is excellent, the definitive version in my opinion of this well known standard is found on drummer Pete La Roca’s album Basra, released in 1965 on Blue Note.

Bobby Hutcherson – Rosewood

For those who have been following our musical journey so far, the name Woody Shaw should sound familiar. A fantastic trumpeter and composer, we first encountered his compositional talents on Jackie McLean’s ‘Sweet Love Of Mine’ and more recently his contributions to the first draft of Andrew Hill’s album Grass Roots. Vibesman Bobby Hutcherson is also a frequent Jazz Impressions favourite and so it was only a matter of time until we’d end up meeting both Shaw and Hutcherson on the same record.

Jack DeJohnette – Epilog

What do Mahavishnu Orchestra’s ‘Vital Transformation’ and Jack DeJohnette’s ‘Epilog’ have in common apart from being great examples of jazz fusion? They both begin with incredible drum breaks. ‘Epilog’ is the final track on DeJohnette’s album Sorcery released on Prestige in 1974.

Pharoah Sanders – Greeting To Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)

To mark the recent passing of pianist McCoy Tyner, the subject of our last post, the track for today is ‘Greeting To Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)’ from the live album Elevation by tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, released in 1974 on Impulse! records.

Jackie McLean – Sweet Love Of Mine

At first glance, it could be easy to mistake Jackie McLean’s album Demon’s Dance as a close sibling of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. Both were released in the same year and sport psychedelic cover artwork by Mati Klarwein but the similarity ends there. Whereas Bitches Brew was a mind-bending concoction of jazz, rock and funk, Demon’s Dance is beautiful example of modal hard bop, recorded three years earlier in 1967 and was the last of 21 albums that McLean recorded for Blue Note Records.

Yusef Lateef – Love Theme From Spartacus

Our last post focussed on the cool ‘La Nevada’ by The Gil Evans Orchestra. The focus of today’s post will be on Yusef Lateef’s ‘Love Theme From Spartacus’ which like ‘La Nevada’, was also released in 1961.

John Coltrane – Impressions

It only seems fitting that the first step on our musical journey begins with a track closely connected to the name of our blog – ‘Impressions’ by the great John Coltrane.