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
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.
