Nation Time Passages: Joe McPhee 85

Joe McPhee Trio - (Meditations On) Alabama

I'm inaugurating the month with someone I've always wanted on here, and what better day than this milestone birthday to do it?

I mean, how many people can say somebody formed what became one of the world's premier Jazz record labels, originally for the sole purpose of showcasing your music?

Set up in 1975 by Swiss music maven Werner Uehlinger, what we know today as Hat Hut Records -- probably one of the ten greatest Jazz imprints of all time, if you ask me -- exists because the music of today's b'day boy was just that important.

Part Archie Shepp, part Don Cherry, part Pharoah Sanders, but all himself: That describes Joe McPhee.

He appeared from nowhere in the mid 1960s, having taught himself saxophone by ear in reaction to seeing John Coltrane in concert.

He started recording on his own at the end of the Sixties, and in 1970 released his signature LP, a political manifesto in sound called Nation Time.

Never shy about combining poetry, free Jazz and more traditional forms into one boiling and passionate stew, he's been a force in music for almost 60 years and still plays and tours like someone a fraction of his age.

As I was putting today's mini-boxset together, I couldn't help but marvel at just how vibrant and alive someone could sound well into their eighties.

I made this thing like always, kind of by accident, when searching for additional, contemporaneous 2021 material to go with the first part, a collaboration with the Soul Jazz band Decoy.

The deeper I delved, the better he played, so I ended up with over two hours of prime McPhee when it was all said and done.

He's 85 today, so this is the perfect present for you if you have never heard him and want to. I usually don't extract stuff from YouTube files, but these jams were so great and so very well captured -- even the Newburgh segment, in the backyard of a restaurant, with a single pro microphone placed right up in the musicians' faces! -- that I just had to do it.

Joe McPhee

Road Diary 2021

live in Europe and the USA

01 Tell Me, How Long Has Trane Been Gone?

02 untitled Blues improvisation

Joe McPhee & Decoy

50th Moers Festival

Freilichtbühne Rodelberg

Moers, Germany

5.21.2021

Joe McPhee - pocket trumpet, saxophones & vocals

Alexander Hawkins - Hammond B3 organ

John Edwards – bass

Hamid Drake – drums & percussion

sourced from a 320/48k digital radio stream from WDR3

03 (Meditations On) Alabama

Rhizome DC 

Washington DC

11.5.2021

Joe McPhee Trio: 

Joe McPhee - tenor saxophone & vocals

Joe Giardullo - tenor saxophone

Michael Bisio - bass

sourced from a 320/48k HD YouTube file

04 poem: Alone Together

05 poem: Nation Time

06 improv: High As the Listening Skies

Joe McPhee & Tomeka Reid

Sequesterfest 6

Experimental Sound Studios

Chicago IL

6.19.2021

Joe McPhee - tenor saxophone & vocals

Tomeka Reid - 'cello

sourced from a 320/48k HD YouTube file

07 improv: Lodger Garden II

08 improv: Lodger Garden I

Joe McPhee & Matt Mottel

Lodger Garden

Newburgh, NY

8.8.2021

Joe McPhee - tenor saxophone & electronics

Matt Mottel - lap hybrid guitar/keyboard & electronics

sourced from a 320/48k HD YouTube file

Total time: 2:08:37

disc break goes after Track 03

compiled, edited & remastered -- with YouTube files converted to 16/44 CD Audio -- by EN, November 2024
672 MB FLAC/direct link

This is a wildly eclectic set of performances, ranging from the skronkier Free Jazz area to the lyrical and balladic side of things, with some electronic excursion paths trodden along the way. Something I've always loved about Joe's playing is his ability to bring that sensitivity and melodicism to the Free thing so effortlessly and naturally.

I'll be back soon with the rest of November, but I couldn't let this day pass without a salute to Joe McPhee, whose music and revolutionary message has never been more relevant than the Sunday before this coming Tuesday.--J.