#post-bop

USA / 1975 / Spiritual Jazz, Post-Bop It’s fun that this is the inaugural album of an Italian label that shares the same name as the album, or maybe it’s vice-versa. Some listeners like the envelopes to be pushed off the table so they can be caught, or turned into paper airplanes and chased. But Harper is very good at pushing the envelope in a gentle way, not challenging the ear but also not…

USA / 1974 / Post-Bop, Avant-Garde Jazz Imagine being part of John Coltrane’s legendary quintet but the end of the 1960s finding you driving a taxi to pay your rent, and then you get into your own groove and release a run of 11 legendary albums in a row. Wild. So what does “sama layuca” even mean? Nothing, according to the dictionary. Rather, it is a name, a title, an interpretive reference to…

USA / 1968 / Post-Bop Orbit. We think of it as flying, but really what it is is falling at an incredibly high speed. Without that speed, you’d just drop. No orbit. But what if you could walk on air? Not at supersonic speed that would make you orbit. No. Just stroll. On the air. Wouldn’t that be cool? Pretty sure if I saw someone doing that, I’d assume they were listening to this album. Damn. And…

Jamaica, India, UK / 1969 / Post-Bop This so-called British jazz recording has a little bit of something for everyone: alto saxophonist from Jamaica, guitarist from India, female jazz vocals for those who like that sort of thing (I certainly do!), and killer support from British musicians who fill out this quartet. Jamaica? India? 1969? Ain’t no way anyone is letting this one go without harping…

USA / 1975 / Spiritual Jazz, Post-Bop, Free Jazz Lures the listener in with the mild, keeps him here for the wild, with the final track, “Soul Brother”, being the culmination of everything Hannibal wants to say about Malcolm X with his trumpet. My goodness… talk about using an instrument as a second voice! This cat’s got it. I also find it strange and exciting how Hannibal put down the trumpet…