#avangardejazz

Tomasz Stańko – Balladyna 

Balladynais an album by Polish jazz trumpeter and composer Tomasz Stańko recorded in December 1975 and released on ECM in April the following year. It was his debut for the prestigious ECM Records label and is widely regarded as a masterpiece of European avant-garde jazz.

Key Album Facts

Personnel: The quartet featured Stańko on trumpet, Tomasz Szukalski (tenor/soprano saxophone), Dave Holland (bass), and Edward Vesala (drums).

Recording: The session took place in December 1975 at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, Germany, produced by Manfred Eicher.

Style: The album is noted for its "predatory lyricism," blending dark, atmospheric melodies with high-energy free jazz exploration

The AllMusic review by Michael G. Nastos awarded the album 3½ stars stating "as pleasant as it is to listen to all the way through, it is equally satisfying, and lies deep within the souls of these four adroit and accomplished musicians playing together as one."

Ornette Coleman – The Complete Science Fiction Sessions

The album includes all of the music that was originally issued on Science Fiction (Columbia, 1972) and Broken Shadows (Columbia, 1982), along with previously unreleased material.

Herbie Hancock – Crossings

Crossings is the tenth album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, released in 1972. It is the second album in his Mwandishi period, which saw him experimenting in electronics. The album is the band’s first to feature new member, synthesizer player Patrick Gleeson. He was scheduled to “set up his Moog synthesizer for Hancock to play.” However, Hancock was so impressed with Gleeson that he “asked Gleeson not only to do the overdubs on the album but join the group.”

Crossings, along with Fat Albert Rotunda and Mwandishi, was reissued in one set as Mwandishi: The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings in 1994 and as The Warner Bros. Years (1969-1972) in 2014.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Richard S. Ginell awarded the album 5 stars and stated: “With the frenzied knocking of what sounds like a clock shop gone berserk, Crossings takes the Herbie Hancock Sextet even further into the electric avant-garde, creating its own idiom.”

Personnel: Herbie Hancock – piano, electric piano, mellotron, percussion Eddie Henderson – trumpet, flugelhorn, percussion Bennie Maupin – soprano saxophone, alto flute, bass clarinet, piccolo, percussion Julian Priester – tenor and alto trombones, bass, percussion Buster Williams – bass guitar, double bass, percussion Billy Hart – drums, percussion

with:

John Coltrane Quartet – Love

From the album “First Meditations”. First Meditations (for quartet) is an album by John Coltrane recorded on September 2, 1965 and posthumously released in 1977.

Chick Corea – Sundance

Sundance is a studio album by jazz pianist Chick Corea, recorded over three days in May 1969 and released on Groove Merchant in February 1972.

David Murray – Flowers For Albert

Ornette Coleman – Twins